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North East London Homeless Health Strategy

North East London Homeless Health Strategy

From this page you can find out more about

What is the homeless health strategy?

The NEL Homeless Health Strategy convenes the system around the most important areas of joint focus and improvement for people experiencing homelessness, and provides a strategic framework to support place and neighbourhood partners to develop plans to address the needs of this population locally.  

The ambition of the strategy is to improve the health and social outcomes for people experiencing homelessness through integrated health, care, and housing pathways and a focus on the wider determinants of health.  

You can learn more about how and why the strategy was developed by reading our case for change.  

What do we mean by 'homelessness'?

Homelessness takes many forms. Nationally, homelessness is defined widely, recognising the complexity of people’s lives, that experiences change over time and that homelessness is often hidden or not in plain sight. People can experience homelessness as: 

  • ‘rooflessness’ which is people living without shelter and sleeping rough on the streets. 
  • ‘houselessness’ which is people who have temporary places to sleep, including people living in local authority temporary accommodation or in institutions, shelters or provided accommodation, for example people seeking asylum. 
  • ‘living in insecure accommodation’ which are people threatened with severe exclusion due to insecure tenancies, eviction, domestic violence, or staying with family and friends known as ‘sofa surfing.’​ 
  • ‘living in inadequate housing’ which are people living housing that is in poor condition and disrepair. For example, without electricity, water and heating, or housing that is overcrowded and unsuitable. 

What are the five pillars of our strategy?

Our strategy sets out five pillars to help us focus our efforts, these are:  

  • improving pathways for hospital admission, discharge and ‘step-down’ 
  • improving equitable access, increase engagement in and ensure high quality primary and community care services 
  • developing innovative approaches to deliver proactive, personalised care and enhance access to mental health, substance misuse and end of life care and support 
  • strengthening a preventative approach to reduce the risk of poor health outcomes for families living in temporary accommodation 
  • developing the infrastructure to support people seeking asylum and refuge to understand, access and be supported by health, care and wider services 

What are the cross-cutting themes identified in the strategy?

Safeguarding

Ensuring the health, wellbeing and human rights of people experiencing homelessness and multiple disadvantage are effectively protected through safeguarding.   

Workforce development

A holistic focus on workforce to: 

  • invest in, structure and deliver accessible and high-quality services 
  • support, develop and retain staff with a focus on wellbeing and the skills need to support the population 
  • create opportunities for employment and development for people experiencing homelessness.   

Data, intelligence and evaluation

Improve our understanding of the needs of people experiencing homelessness and wider inclusion health groups through better data collection, sharing and analysis, ensuring evidence and evaluation drive meaningful change. 

How was the strategy developed?

This strategy was co-developed by the ICB Health Inequalities Team, with system partners across NEL and most importantly, with those with lived experience of homelessness and social exclusion.  

The Health Inequalities Team work with system partners to co-create and embed approaches to improve population health and reduce health inequalities.   

To contact the team, email nelondonicb.healthequityacademy@nhs.net  

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