What are Health Inequalities?
Health inequalities are avoidable, unfair, and systematic differences in health between different groups of people. There are many types of health inequality, and the term can be used in various ways.
What is Inclusion?
Inclusion is the practice of ensuring that people who often face discrimination and exclusion due to race, gender, ability, sexuality, or identity are included and accommodated.
What does this mean for Locala?
Locala understands that being an inclusive, trauma-informed organisation is crucial in addressing and challenging inequalities within the communities we serve. The THRIVE strategy is about ensuring that Locala is an inclusive and diverse organisation, with equality, diversity, and inclusion at the core of all we do.
As a social enterprise, we can repurpose our profits to support colleagues, partners, and communities in addressing health inequalities, ensuring better and healthier lives for all.
Locala’s commitment to this is demonstrated through the leadership of two Health Inequalities and Inclusion Leads, Preeya Patel and Donna Oldman. Their roles are pivotal in ensuring that, as an organisation, we develop and mature our THRIVE Strategy’s ambition of becoming an inclusive and responsive healthcare provider. By utilising data, they will inform our working practices both internally and externally.
Preeya’s focus is on engaging with the diverse communities we serve. This directly links to the health inequalities aspect of the role. Success will involve collaboration across a wide range of Locala teams and individuals to co-ordinate a clear programme of work and activities, using data to inform and direct our approach. Preeya will continue to lead the Learning Disability and Autism workstreams under the health inequalities banner.
Donna leads the Inclusion agenda by forging strong, collaborative relationships with colleagues through the Inclusivity Networks, as well as with external stakeholders. She supports the Chairs and Executive Sponsors in fulfilling their roles. Her aim is to embed Inclusion across all aspects of Locala. She will achieve this through a clear framework of activity designed to deliver tangible outputs, outcomes, and measure impact. In her role, Donna undertakes research, leads projects, uses data to drive work, and monitors and reviews equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice initiatives throughout the organisation. Donna will also continue to lead Locala’s Social Impact agenda.
