Nikita Kanani on learning from COVID-19 inequalities
Apr 22, 01:48 PM
Share
Subscribe
Nikita Kanani was medical director of primary care at NHS England and NHS Improvement and deputy lead for the COVID-19 vaccine program. She was interviewed in June 2022.
20:33.190 -> 00:21:47.990
What we talk about in the vaccine program - and actually across health, this is a legacy for health services - is how we care for underserved communities, because actually they're not hard to reach. We've just designed our services wrong. We haven't quite learned how to reflect what communities need, not just for their vaccination but for their wider health care as well. So, we've spent a huge amount of time and I've, you know, I've done it with the PM, I've done it with community and faith leaders nationally, I've done it locally in my own patch, you know, helping people to understand why vaccination is important. And one of the things that we've heard often is – ‘well you're telling us vaccination is important but black mums still die in childbirth more than white mums’ and so we're in that kind of bizarre scenario where we're both offering kind of this life-saving public health intervention, but equally we're in a position where we haven't quite solved some of the other things that people are worried about. So, I do see now that both through the vaccine program itself we will start to right some of those wrongs but also more widely through healthcare, through society, we have a legacy and a platform and a way of working now that will allow us to deliver more equitable healthcare and reduce health inequalities overall.
20:33.190 -> 00:21:47.990
What we talk about in the vaccine program - and actually across health, this is a legacy for health services - is how we care for underserved communities, because actually they're not hard to reach. We've just designed our services wrong. We haven't quite learned how to reflect what communities need, not just for their vaccination but for their wider health care as well. So, we've spent a huge amount of time and I've, you know, I've done it with the PM, I've done it with community and faith leaders nationally, I've done it locally in my own patch, you know, helping people to understand why vaccination is important. And one of the things that we've heard often is – ‘well you're telling us vaccination is important but black mums still die in childbirth more than white mums’ and so we're in that kind of bizarre scenario where we're both offering kind of this life-saving public health intervention, but equally we're in a position where we haven't quite solved some of the other things that people are worried about. So, I do see now that both through the vaccine program itself we will start to right some of those wrongs but also more widely through healthcare, through society, we have a legacy and a platform and a way of working now that will allow us to deliver more equitable healthcare and reduce health inequalities overall.