Through its Poverty Proofing© programme, Children North East has carried out audits of two key services for young people – speech and language therapy and CAMHS (children and adolescent mental health services). Northumbria Healthcare's maternity service is also working with the charity through a North East and North Cumbria ICB project.

Northumbria Healthcare is now also working with both organisations on a delivery partner model, which will see staff trained to help embed poverty proofing in other teams and services, alongside a group of influencers to support this agenda.

Consultant in public health, Jill Harland, said: ‘Poverty remains an issue in our communities, and we cannot shy away from the impact it has on how people access and experience healthcare services.

‘Building on the work done with some of our key front-line services so far, I am delighted that we are taking this further to develop an approach across the trust which will help mitigate the influence of poverty on access, experience and health outcomes for our patients.'

Poverty proofing is part of the trust's work to tackle health inequalities in the areas it serves. Tackling inequalities is one of Northumbria Healthcare's big signals which guide its strategy, while also being one of the five key pillars of its Community Promise.

To support this, Northumbria Healthcare set up a health inequalities programme board to identify and address health inequalities in its services to improve patient care.