Best practice methods for engaging with clients who experience inequalities

Authors:
Catherine Tearne, Anne Burns and Alan Curley

Presenters:
Catherine Tearne
Tobacco worker for the Health Inequalities, Renfrewshire Community health Partnership, Paisley, UK

Alan Curley
Health Improvement Senior for Tobacco, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, UK

Abstract
In 2005 Renfrewshire Community health partnership funded a project to help tackle inequalities within the area. This included using various community development approaches to better engage with clients experiencing various social and health inequalities. Traditionally, clients experiencing inequalities have not engaged well with NHS services and are thus often described as ‘hard to reach’ clients. Therefore, creative community engagement approaches were undertaken in order to attract more clients experiencing inequalities to the cessation services. Furthermore, the tobacco inequalities worker used more flexible and client-centred approaches within their cessation work with these clients. These more flexible engagement strategies and cessation strategies worked extremely well with clients experiencing inequalities. In 2009, the inequalities worker engaged with over 300 clients, 200 of whom attended the cessation service. 87 of these clients went on to quit for greater than 4 weeks, and some of those clients enjoyed the process so much, that they have went on to become trained voluntary workers in a tobacco befriending project which helps to utilise ‘stop-smoking champions’ especially within areas of inequality.

Source of funding: Renfrewshire Community Health partnerships

Declaration of interest: none