Why Is Health Literacy Important to NHS England? Tim Straughan Head of Choice NHS England

Definition “The personal characteristic and social resources needed for individuals and communities to access, understand, appraise and use information and services to make decisions about health” Shows that HL is a two sided issue ie not just an individual responsibility to be health literate but a system wide responsibility to support people by developing information that people can apply to their everyday circumstances and services that are not overly complex World Health Organisation 2015

Research Tells us it is Important 43%/61% of English working age population do not understand health information they are given (IHE 2015) This doesn’t mean people understand none of the information they are given but means that they might miss the salient point – you will hear of examples of this in the various workshops today. In effect we are asking people to do things they don’t really understand – this can range from something as simple as attending a “Phlebotomy” clinic – why don’t we say “blood test clinic”?? to following complex medication instructions. Either way it results in inefficiency for people who go to the wrong place at the wrong time through no fault of theirs which, of course, in turn leads to inefficiency for the system.

System Drivers NHS England Next Steps on the Five Year Forward View - Enhance patient activation, support self-management for LTCs, enable greater choice and improve prevention STPs / ACS are our vehicle to support and integrate these activities via initiatives such as Shared Decision Making and Social Prescribing   HL can support the Triple aim of improved health and wellbeing (health literate people can be more effective at preventing illness and managing a LTC), better care (health literacy aware practitioners can have better conversations about choice and options which means less decision regret) and greater financial value (health literate people will understand why it is important to follow medication instructions as well as being better able to understand those instructions) Opportunity now within ACS’s to test out the resources and as a “real time system opportunity” – important because they are the system drivers of the future Responsibility to enable greater meaningful hl choice and long term condition management, secondary prevention SDM, PHBs, PCSP

Why did we do it this way? Because health literacy is a two sided issue reflecting: A systems issue – the complexity of health information and the health and care system (awareness raising) The individuals ability – to understand and use information to make decisions about their health and care HL is the golden thread running through this