果冻影院

Data quality toolkit to improve monitoring of access to healthcare services for marginalised groups.

International migration is increasing as a result of people moving to work, study, and join families as well as those being forced to move due to persecution, conflict, natural disasters and other humanitarian conflicts. Despite international commitments to provide universal health coverage (UHC) and ensure 鈥榥o-one is left behind鈥�, many migrants struggle to access timely and affordable healthcare they need.

A team from 果冻影院 Institute for Health Informatics (IHI), in collaboration with the non-governmental organisation, Doctors of the World (Medicins du Monde, MdM), is finding ways to improve how data on migrants鈥� access to healthcare is collected so it can better monitor developments that will ensure countries do more to provide UHC.

MdM runs medical clinics in countries across Europe, including the UK, supporting more than 40,000 people each year, many of whom are undocumented migrants. To monitor and improve their services, each country鈥檚 MdM branch collects data on who attends clinics and why. 听This large dataset of health-related information for a group of people that do not appear in national statistics, helps the organisation identify gaps in services and provide for the unmet needs of service users.

The UK clinic of MdM is based in Stratford, London, where clinicians see approximately 2,000 patients each year and support hundreds more through telephone-based advocacy. The team works with GP surgeries to register patients and runs a training programme called 鈥楽afe Surgeries鈥� to ensure surgery staff are aware of the rights of undocumented migrants.

鈥�Some underserved migrant groups struggle to access healthcare services in the UK, either because they don鈥檛 know what they are entitled to, or because they are incorrectly refused GP registration.鈥�

鈥淪ome underserved migrant groups struggle to access healthcare services in the UK, either because they don鈥檛 know what they are entitled to, or because they are incorrectly refused GP registration,鈥� explains Rachel Burns (果冻影院 IHI).

Rachel is a member of the MdM Observatory Project, 听a project that brings together 果冻影院 epidemiologists with representatives from ten MdM clinics worldwide, to find better ways to standardise their data collection and analysis and improve the data quality of the MdM clinics.

鈥淭his data is vital for the development of national policies that are inclusive for migrants,鈥� Rachel emphasises. 鈥淏y collecting robust and appropriate information, we can break down the data into detailed sub-categories to identify the barriers that some groups face when accessing UHC and start to address the inequalities.鈥�

Through a series of workshops, issues such as variations in sample size, missing data and inconsistent wording have been identified. A quality improvement toolkit is now being designed that will be implemented across all MdM clinics across the world. The team is also running culturally relevant workshops with advocates and service users, that will help identify ways to evidence the unmet UHC needs of migrants.

鈥淗uge inequalities exist in who can access supposedly universal healthcare,鈥� says Rachel. 鈥淲e want to break down barriers and ensure people with lived experience of exclusion from health services can help to shape research and influence provision that will help these underserved groups to access healthcare.鈥�

The report received funding from the 2022/23 果冻影院 Pathways to Achievement (SDGs) funding call.