Evaluation of IRMO’s Health and Wellbeing Project
The project is a mixed-method evaluation of IRMO’s health and wellbeing intervention. IRMO is a charity which has delivered outreach, one-to-one support and advocacy for access to healthcare. They work to remove barriers to GP registration and access to the Covid-19 vaccine, among others, in a context where Latin Americans suffer a high level of health inequalities and exclusion from public health services. The project will entail surveying IRMO service users, and 5 semi-structured interviews.
Summary & aims
This project aims to evaluate IRMOs Health and Wellbeing project. The report will be split into impact and learning to highlight the strengths and limitations of the project. The report may have an impact on the continuation of the programme and IRMOs ability to apply for future funding. Exploring limitations may allow IRMO to develop their intervention in the future.
Methodology
This is a mixed-method evaluation, which will include a survey of service users, and 5 semi-structured interviews. The aim is to capture broad experiences of using IRMO services and explore some of the challenges of accessing health services. These will be analysed together to create a full-picture of the impact IRMO’s health and wellbeing project. It will also highlight areas of improvement, and may include policy recommendations.
Findings and Recommendations
The main findings of this project can be divided in four areas:
Individual support:
- The most frequent outcome from IRMO’s Health and Wellbeing initiative was receiving support to register with a GP.
- Translation support, particularly regarding technical and medical language was a key need of IRMO service users.
Community Outreach:
- With the help from IRMO’s wellbeing bus service, users were able to receive support in getting their COVID vaccinations.
- Most survey respondents heard of IRMO through word of mouth or social media
Social Media:
- IRMO reached nearly 150k views on posts related to the Covid-19 vaccine and access to healthcare services through their social media channels
- Approximately 2000 community members were regularly informed about the Covid-19 vaccine and healthcare access via the IRMO’s Whatsapp broadcast list
Workshops:
- Outcomes of the workshops show service users were supported to register with a GP, offered translation support, and were supported to book medical appointments
The literature highlights four main barriers Latin Americans face; language, knowledge of NHS systems, stigma and lack of institutional recognition. IRMO has been a bridge, aiding the community to overcome these barriers to accessing care, being able to provide holistic and culturally sensitive support for Latin American’s in their native languages. Overall, service users reported benefits from accessing the initiative.
However, it is also important for future research and initiatives to focus on how institutions like the NHS can adapt their systems to eliminate barriers at the source.
Principal Investigator
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