This pioneering work has started at ELFT as part of its commitment to addressing health inequalities and promoting social justice for the communities it serves.
The work is based upon the ground-breaking Marmot Review report 'Fair Society, Healthy Lives’ by Professor Sir Michael Marmot which recognised that disadvantage and subsequent poor health starts before birth and accumulates throughout life.
Sir Michael set out 8 principles to reduce inequalities
The eight principles are:
- Giving every child the best start in life
- Enable all children, young people and adults to maximise their capabilities and have control over their lives (education and training
- Create fair employment and good work for all
- Ensure healthy standard of living for all (pay, income and financial support)
- Create and develop healthy and sustainable places and communities (environmental sustainability; healthy places; social isolation and community development and engagement)
- Strengthening the role and impact of ill health prevention
- Address structural racism
- Tackle climate change.
Several towns and cities have adopted these principles and become Marmot Cities. ELFT is now working to become the first Marmot Trust in the country.
“Adopting the Marmot Review principles and framework is a hugely exciting step forward in our mission to improve the quality of life for all we serve,” said ELFT Chief Executive Paul Calaminus.
“We are really excited to learn from all our partners in taking this work forward and to see how we can best contribute to improve the wellbeing of the populations we work with."
Work already underway at ELFT
We are piloting this work in Luton and Newham. We are working closely with our partners in local authorities, the voluntary sector and local businesses.
In Luton, we are focussing on increasing access to good quality employment and training for young people and adults as well as our service users.
In Newham the focus is on the wellbeing of children and young people and to prioritise children and young people’s emotional, physical, social and learning development.
All Marmot work will be developed using a collaborative approach, quality improvement (QI), people participation (PP) and health equity focus.
Our next steps are
To take stock of the assets within ELFT that align with addressing the Marmot principles
Engage with all of our partners - Integrated Care systems, local government, our communities, schools, voluntary organisations and importantly, our staff, and service users to co-produce how we will take this forward.
Be informed by our staff’s experiences, both within ELFT and more broadly so we can take action and be an exemplar for the communities in which we operate.
