LGBTQ+ – Community Health Champions https://chc.vast.org.uk volunteering to promote better health in Stoke-on-Trent Mon, 20 Oct 2025 07:03:42 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 https://chc.vast.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/favicon.png LGBTQ+ – Community Health Champions https://chc.vast.org.uk 32 32 Older LGBT+ group shines spotlight on health inequalities https://chc.vast.org.uk/older-lgbt-group-shines-spotlight-on-health-inequalities/ Tue, 23 Sep 2025 13:04:59 +0000 https://chc.vast.org.uk/?p=17313

Older LGBT+ group shines spotlight on health inequalities

LGBT+ people experience health inequalities in many aspects of their lives including their experience of accessing health services.

Being older can add to the difficulties experienced as many LGBT+ people have a long personal history of lived experiences that includes discrimination, rejection and social isolation.

Additionally, some people have lived large parts of their lives without feeling able to tell anyone that they are LGBT+ and this can increase their anxieties about accessing public services. Compared to the general population LGBT+ people have significantly poorer mental health, higher rates of alcohol and substance misuse, and a higher probability of suffering complex long-term conditions

The Health Inequalities grant funding has enabled Stoke-based LGBT+ Older People’s Group to support their social meetings with speakers on health-related issues including breast cancer and bowel cancer screening, mental health, social subscribers and dementia – monthly meetings regularly attracting between 20 – 28 people.

The group also conducted three online surveys to gather feedback from members to better understand their experiences of local services and how they could be improved and the findings are now published in full on the group’s website. 

The three surveys covered Adult Social Care, Mental Health and Hospital and Primary Care respectively.

Andrew Colclough, Vice Chair of North Midlands LGBT+ Older People’s Group said: “We’ve shared the findings through our monthly newsletter which is regularly distributed to over 380 people and have received feedback from Staffordshire Adult Social Care Services who were very interested. The findings have also been shared with the national LGBT+ consortium and the national Patient Engagement Network.”

“As a broad theme, we really do want to raise awareness of what LGBT+ health inequalities are and for organisations to think ‘what can we do to make things better’. The most important thing is to have the conversation.”

“Anyone, anywhere accessing any services could be LGBT+ and while there is a not a one size fits all solution, we need services to be visibly supportive of LGBT+ and a wider range of health-related materials with language and imagery so that people feel better represented and welcome.”

“For local Primary Care, we’d like GP services to sign up to the Pride in Practice scheme to show they are LGBT+ friendly.”

North Midlands LGBT+ Older People’s Group would like all local health services to familiarise themselves with the findings and take action to address the themes.

The Three Surveys can be downloaded from the website:

Let’s Make It Better – Adult Social Care

Conducted March 2025, 23 respondents.

Main themes

  • Need for services to be visibly supportive of diverse LGBT+  identities
  • Availability of appropriate services and support

Download summary report – Let’s Make It Better – Adult Social Care

Let’s Make It Better – Mental Health

Conducted May 2025, 30 respondents.

Main themes

  • A need to boost awareness in local mental health services of the disproportionately high number of LGBT+ people with mental health issues
  • Local mental health services to consider LGBT+ issues and their competence to deal with them. Do staff and/or volunteers require further training to understand and respond appropriately?
  • A need to boost confidence that local mental health services can meet the needs of LGBT+ people. What can services do to reach out to LGBT+ people and boost their confidence in the services available?

Download summary report – Let’s Make It Better – Mental Health

Let’s Make It Better – Hospitals and Primary Care

Conducted June 2025, 18 respondents.

Main themes

  • GP practices to consider joining the national “Pride in Practice” scheme? (See here for details – LGBT Foundation Pride in Practice)
  • The need to improve visibility of LGBT+ friendly materials in GP practices and other health services.
  • Consideration of staff training and the actual sensitivity of staff to diverse LGBT+ people in practice. As one respondent said “It’s not all about flags and pronouns”.

Download summary report – Let’s Make It Better – Hospitals and Primary Care

Click here to see the surveys
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