Meet our new Health Literacy team!

Hello! We are your Health Literacy team at STSFT. October is Health Literacy month, and as part of this we want to introduce ourselves and explain more about why health literacy is important to us as a Trust. 

We are here to help you write patient materials in a simple way. We’ve put together lots of useful materials on our intranet page. There's also a video with a message from our Chief Exec, Ken Bremner. These materials will help you start writing in a simple way now. Find out how to find the reading grade of your leaflet. Get tips on writing in plain English. There’s even advice on how to write numbers and dosages. Check them out here.

There are over 900 patient information leaflets in the Trust. We are starting by reviewing these and helping lower the reading age of them. We will contact your team when we are reviewing your leaflets. We’ll explain what changes we’re suggesting and why. Over time, we want to be able to help you think about health literacy from the start of whatever you’re writing. We’re developing some training to help with this. Keep checking our intranet page to find out when this is running.

Name: Lorna Dawson

Job title:Health Literacy Officer

Length of time with the Trust: Almost 3 months!

About my role: In England, the average reading age is 9-11 years old. A lot of the information that we produce as a Trust is written at a higher reader age than this. My role involves developing processes for changing the reading age of the information we have already produced, and making sure information we produce in future is written at the right reading age too.

I’m starting by looking at patient leaflets that have already been written. I’ll check what the reading age is at the moment. Then I’ll help change it and make things easier to understand if needed. The leaflets will probably look and sound a bit different from before. I’ll be talking to staff about those changes and explaining why they’re recommended.

We want writing in a simple way to become normal for everyone in the Trust. I’m developing training and guides to help with this. Leaflets are just the start. I’m also on the lookout for any opportunities to make the information we produce easier to understand, whether this is a letter or a website. It’s a role with so much potential! I’m really glad to be in it!

Name: Ryan Swiers 

Job title: Consultant in Public Health

Length of time with the Trust: 3 years

About my role: I lead on health inequalities and population health in the Trust. I see health literacy as a foundation underpinning a lot of the work that I do. If people find it hard to understand the information they’re given, they’re likely to experience health inequalities because of that. Improving health literacy will contribute towards reducing health inequalities.

Organisations can play a big part in improving health literacy. My role involves raising awareness, in the Trust and the wider system, of the importance of health literacy and what organisations can do about it. I’ve been working on how we can address health literacy in a systematic way, so it becomes embedded in the culture of the Trust. I secure funding for this as well as for health literacy work across the wider system.

There’s a big appetite for improving health literacy across the North East. I’m working to join up what we do at STSFT with this wider system, sharing practice, avoiding duplication, and suggesting new health literacy initiatives.

Name: Fiona Carney

Job title: Population Health Lead

Length of time with the Trust: 8 1/2 years

About my role: Health care is an important factor in improving health, but health outcomes are also strongly influenced by factors outside of the health care system.  My role involves working closely with colleagues across the organisation, our local system, as well as regionally and nationally, to improve population health so that our communities are healthier and able to get more out of life.

There is growing evidence that health literacy is a population health issue. Poor health literacy is more common than expected, and is most common among those who are already socially disadvantaged.

Over the last year I have been working closely with key colleagues to help them understand what is health literacy is, why it matters and what we can do about it as an organisation.

We have been successful in securing funding to support a small Health Literacy team at the Trust to drive system‐wide health improvements around health literacy.  This is a very exciting time for the Trust and I am really excited to be part of this work. 

Name: Nicole Ahmed

Job title: Public Health Registrar

Length of time with the Trust: 3 months (though I was here 2015-2016 too!)

About my role: I’m learning about health literacy too! Helping people to really understand their health and how it can be improved seems like such an obvious thing to do. But it’s also normal to fall into work habits and not realise that we can improve things for the people we serve. I am working with the team to look at how we make changes in ways that work for our staff and communities. I’m making sure the voices of the community are heard and that we act on what they tell us about the materials we produce. For me this is all about ensuring that we make accessing healthcare as simple and pain free as possible; it shouldn’t be another thing for people to have to worry about.