News & Events > Accessibility and usability

From next week the Healthy Communities Programme will be hosting a series of cases studies focused on the relationship between health and issues of equality and diversity. The case studies will be accompanied by an online "hotseat" discussion on the Healthy Communities, Community of Practice (CoP). You are invited to join and to share your thoughts and experiences on topics such as offender, gypsy and traveller health and removing the barriers to a healthy life.

A new report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 'Creating a stronger information, advice and advocacy system for older people' has been released. The Solutions paper highlights recent work in Newcastle which has developed ways of working with existing systems to make them more "older person friendly", efficient, and effective for all concerned.

This article in the British Medical Journal this week is a personal reflection of one woman's journey through the healthcare system in Canada, while undergoing treatment for breast cancer. During the authors treatment she saw 35 health professionals at different hospitals and clinics - not one passed information on to anyone else. The article highlights some of the frustrations and potentially harmful consequences of this lack of communication and suggests some solutions for both patients and health professionals.

In response to President Obama's call for increased public participation in federal decision making, the US National Institutes of Health have published a call for information on health information-seeking behaviours and trends, consumers' health information interests, how the public accesses and uses health information and barriers that might hinder NIH's ability to communicate with health consumers.

The NHS Alliance are now beginning the debate on "Whose NHS is it Anyway?" The idea is to stimulate a national debate on accountability. They hope to receive a range of ideas and advice. After 3 months or so, they intend to pull the ideas together to produce a paper that offers a way forward. The Alliance would like everyone to place comments on the website. They shall be asking a wide range of people for their views and they hope to have an excellent fruit salad of opinions!