Afiya main site

Back in 1997, with the election of New Labour, it was essential to promote the health and wellbeing of BME communities. Nearly 14 years later, with a coalition government, the radical restructuring of the NHS and adult social care and with GPs to commission mental health services, we need a stronger voice in promoting equitable health and social care services for BME people.

The cuts on public expenditure could potentially have a devastating impact on BME communities and community organisations. So as one of the few national BME charities to have developed a successful track record in health and social care, Afiya's role is more crucial now than it was back in 1997.

From our many consultations across the country, people say that they want us to play a more active role in assisting BME and mainstream services on the race equality agenda. Our framework for action - Achieving equality in health and social care, is a key part of our campaign for change. Ensuring that service users and carers have a voice is at the core of our work. One of our seven recommendations in our framework for action is to ensure that there is service user and carer leadership in the evaluation of all services.

To that end we want to develop partnerships in delivering services, providing consultancy support and sharing good practice with GPs as well as health and social care commissioners locally, regionally and nationally.

We are planning to host a public health roundtable linked to the white paper - Equity and excellence: liberating the NHS. Dr Jayasree Kalathil has been commissioned to disseminate the information about the health white paper, the forthcoming public health white paper and the mental health consultation. Through that process Afiya will develop its own perspective, solutions and approaches in addition to the questions currently being posed by the coalition government.

A fresh vision is necessary as BME groups, particularly African-Caribbean men, Asian women and refugee communities, are at least three times more likely than the national average to be admitted to psychiatric hospital with longer rates of detention, and are still more likely to access restricted mental health services through the criminal justice system or social services instead of being referred by a GP. This has to change.