After recognising the need to address health inequalities and create a safe space for gender-diverse patients, the team at Robin Hood Lane Health Health Centre embarked on a project to promote LGBTQ+ inclusivity within their practice.
Led initially by Dr Harriet Adams, the project was then handed over to Dr Poppy Allen GP Registrar, who herself identifies as Queer and was keen to improve care for other LGBTQ+ people.
“The inspiration for this project stemmed from Dr Harriet Adams’ research into health inequalities and the evidence showing that LGBTQ+ people often have poorer experiences of healthcare, which often result in worse health outcomes for this community.
“As someone personally affected by these issues, I was really keen to be involved when I had the opportunity to take on this work.”
Through Dr Allen’s research and discussions with staff, the practice identified several areas for improvement. Particularly as they found they only had a few patients registered as transgender and non-binary, below the number expected for a practice of their size.
“First, we wanted to create an environment where LGBTQ+ people could feel comfortable being themselves, open with staff and seek healthcare without fear of discrimination.
“Secondly, we wanted to make sure our gender-diverse patients were up-to-date with their cancers screenings and that we had the right data about who was eligible for different types of screening.”
To address these issues Robin Hood Lane Health Centre has made a series of changes, as Dr Allen explains.
Improving our data
“We started by updating our registration form for new patients so that people can better describe their gender identity and whether their current gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth. This will help ensure we are inviting people to the right cancer screenings and closing the gap in our knowledge of our patients.”
Representation matters
“Creating visual representation of queer people within our practice was another important step. We introduced posters and leaflets featuring LGBTQ+ representation and displayed a window sticker incorporating the progress flag, signalling to patients that our practice is a safe and inclusive space.
“We also provided staff with pronoun badges that can use if they wanted to.”
Giving people the advice they need
“We provided staff and patients with a list of useful contacts and information relevant to LGBTQ+ people, particularly regarding cancer screenings for non-binary and transgender people and other services we offer.
“Hopefully this will encourage people to come forward for screenings who might not have received an invitation initially. We also put this up as a poster in the surgery to clearly show this information.
“Within 24 hours a patient asked us for it to be photocopied and thought that it was amazing that we’d put it up in the waiting room!”
We wanted to create an environment where LGBTQ+ people could feel comfortable being themselves, open with staff and seek healthcare without fear of discrimination.
Dr Poppy Allen
Updating staff training and policy
“We wanted to make sure our staff understood what language to use and the barriers that LGBTQ+ people face, so we worked with Rachel Nowiskow from the Sutton LGBTQ+ Forum to run the training on LGBTQ+ healthcare issues.
“We’ve had great feedback from staff about the session and both clinical and non-clinical staff feel more confident in their knowledge about LGBTQ healthcare.”
Speaking about the training Rachel explained why it was so important to run: “As healthcare professionals we need to acknowledge our own privileges and strive to improve health inequalities.
“The census results from 2021 showed there are just under 4,000 LGBTQ+ people living in Sutton, and around 800 people identifying as transgender. These demographics should be influencing how we continue to tackle healthcare equity in the LGBTQ+ population.
“The Robin Hood Lane Health Centre made sure a wide variety of both clinical and non-clinical staff attended the training I provided and have continued to make further progress in LGBTQ+ healthcare at their surgery.”
The practice also revised their policies on harassment to explicitly include terminology related to homophobia and transphobia.
Next step: Involving our patients
“We want to develop a sensitive method of talking to LGBTQ+ patients about their experiences of care so we can use this to inform future improvements to the surgery.
“I’ve developed a survey to understand LGBTQ+ people’s experiences of healthcare services and how we can do better, which Rachel from Sutton LGBTQ Forum is going to share with patients this weekend. This is the first step in us getting some real patient feedback soon!
“We are also planning to improve our website by setting up a page specifically for LGBTQ+ patients, building on the information we’ve already put together for our poster. We also hope to add a feedback form to this page, so people can tell us about suggestions and changes they’d like to see.”
Celebrating success
To help other practices adopt this approach, Dr Allen recently presented the project to the Wallington Primary Care Network so other GP practices in Sutton can improve their surgery for LGBTQ+ people.
“It’s such a critical time to do a project like this. In the current climate it can still feel scary to be in the LGBQT+ community, so knowing your GP is supporting and accepting of you is really important.”
To showcase this work across South West London, Dr Allen also submitted a poster about this work our Quality Improvement conference for which they won second place and meant she could present the work to others across our six boroughs.
Dr Naomi Bennett who is a GP Partner at Robin Hood Lane Health Centre and supported Dr Allen to deliver this work also described why this project has been so important.
“At Robin Hood Lane we pride ourselves on being inclusive and having equality and diversity as a golden thread through everything we do. However, we realise that there is always more we can do to improve the experiences of all the rich and varied communities that we serve.
“Trying to improve the experience of our LGBTQ+ communities came as a result of realising that there is an issue with screening recalls for people who are not the gender they were assigned at birth. This was the starting point, but through Dr Allen, the project grew as new ideas and new needs were identified.
“We are very proud of the hard work Dr Allen has put in to making our surgery more inclusive and welcoming for this community. We look forward to seeing if we can get any further feedback from Dr Allen’s collaboration with Rachel Nowiskow and the Sutton LGBTQ+ Forum.”
At Robinhood Lane we pride ourselves on being inclusive and having equality and diversity as a golden thread through everything we do.
Dr Naomi Bennett