We are delighted to announce our new strategy which will set our priorities for the next 3 years.
September 2023 marked 5 years of Equally Well UK. This served as a great opportunity to look back at what we have achieved and consider how we can best work to improve the physical health of people with severe mental illness and close the 15 to 20 year life expectancy gap facing them.
We believe that we all, regardless of where we live, have an equal right to good health and effective health care. No one should have poorer physical health or health care just because they have a severe mental illness. We want to make sure that everyone living with long-term mental illness has access to effective, timely, consistent and responsive help at every stage of their life.
We brought our members together to reflect on our joint accomplishments and think about what we do well and how we could improve as we look ahead to the next five years. We heard from over 30 member organisations about their priorities, what they think Equally Well UK should be focusing on, and how we can better support the work they do, and fed this into our strategic thinking for the next three years.
Our strategy promises to promote collaborative action to improve physical health among people with severe mental illness, and champion the voices of people living with severe mental illness and those who care for them. Our four priorities will be at the heart of the work we do from 2024 through to 2027.
Our four priorities are:
- Promoting equitable access to physical health services for people with severe mental illness which addresses inequalities and diversity.
- Employing coproduction methodology to ensure everything we do is led by both experts by experience and experts by profession.
- Campaigning and influencing for changes in national policy to improve the physical health of people with severe mental illness.
- Supporting our members and partners in creating equal physical and mental health by sharing ideas, information and evidence across our network.
We hope this new strategy provides renewed motivation and clarity of focus so that we can ensure people with severe mental illness have longer and better lives.
