2. Whatâs the Problem?
âI guess as well the longer youâre on the streets
the more you feel separated from health
professionals. You donât want to go to them.
Theyâre part of the system and youâre so far away
from that.â â Peer Advocate
âYou donât know where you are from day to day,
where you are from moment to moment, really.â â
HHPA Client
â⊠the language and communication barriers, not
understanding what the doctors are saying.
People donât have the confidence to even ask to
see someone.â â Peer Advocate
ââŠyou put a lot of it down to just being on the
streets, the cold and the drinking and drugs, so
you donât think about it, and you donât want to
know.â â Peer Advocate
4. 4
One-to-One Support
"As a Peer you can share your experience and show there is a
solution, then clients can find their own confidence and begin
advocating for themselves.â
5. Hostels
and day
centres
Regular
presence
Informal
chats about
health and
wellbeing
Bring in
healthcare
providers
Facilitated
âcoffee
morningâ
sessions
Mobile
testing
âWe create a safe non-judgemental
environment where people feel
safe to discuss anything that is on
their mind.â
Health In-Reach
6. Why Peers?
6
âWell a lot of the Advocates have
been there and done it. So they
understand us a little bit better,
and you can talk to them on a
level and you can be honest with
them.â â HHPA client
âIâve been in the system all my
life, it takes a lot for me to trust
people, but straight away from
the word go he explained that
heâs had his troubles in the past
and that really broke the ice, I
felt quite comfortable.â â HHPA
Client
7. 7
HHPA supports people experiencing homelessness to improved
health
It Works! Young Foundation
Evaluation: Key Findings
âIf it werenât for you guys
[Groundswell] coming and
taking the time out and getting
myself sorted out, I reckon I
would have been dead now.
Thatâs how much it made an
impact in my life.â â HHPA
Client
- Increased attendance at scheduled
appointments; reduction in DNA rates to
that of the general population
- Decreased reliance on secondary and
unplanned care; 42% reduction in
secondary care use
- Increased knowledge, confidence and
motivation to manage health and
engage with healthcare
- Increasingly independent healthcare
related behaviours.
âItâs made me more confident in
myself and Iâm dealing with
things now that I never would
have dealt with. If no one was
there with me I wouldnât have
dealt with it. So in the long run
itâs going to help. It really is.â â
Client
Introduce yourself and tell them what you do at Groundswell (I know thatâs a bit fluid at the moment â maybe âset up health promotion in-reach sessionsâ is a good bet ; )
Can you talk a bit about the barriers and why people donât access mainstream healthcare. You donât have to read out the quotes they are just there to back up what youâre saying. I guess the main point weâre making is that the NHS is meant to be the safety net â why are the people weâre working with falling through?
Could you say a wee bit about how you started as a volunteer in the second intake of volunteers when we were only working in two boroughs and now you are a staff member and weâre working across so youâve been part of the team as the work expands and develops
Explain what we do
Explain what we do
Talk a bit about why it needs to be peers
The headline finding of this evaluation are that Groundswellâs HHPA programme supports people experiencing homelessness to have improved health. Excitingly it works on a number of levels to help people overcome the barriers they face and to engage more proactively with their health management.
Importantly, as you can see the benefits are not just seen at one point in the patient journey. So we see both increased attendance at scheduled appointments, and a commensurate decrease in reliance on secondary and unplanned care. What we see is that the Peer Advocates are helping clients to increase their knowledge, confidence and motivation â they feel that it is possible to take control of their health, and to improve their health. For many clients, this is a long hard journey changing habits and patterns which have been ingrained over years, and building up self-confidence from the lowest of levels. It is by no means an overnight transformation but each and every client makes significant progress to being more independent and proactive in managing their health.
All of this, of course, has cost saving implications for the NHS and potentially wider cost reductions based on improved health and reduced access to healthcare services.