Publish date: 13 May 2025
West London NHS Trust have been working hard with staff, patients*, carers*, and communities to progress plans to implement the Patient Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF) from April 2025 which is the official start date.
The primary goal of PCREF is to address disparities in access, experience, and outcomes for racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse communities in mental health services, to foster greater trust and confidence.
The framework is mandatory, with NHS England (NHSE) requiring that implementation and delivery plans are co-produced with patients, carers and communities.
Trust Chief Nurse and PCREF Executive Lead Gillian Kelly says of this work; “We're working closely with staff, patients, carers and communities to bring PCREF to life. Together, we’re paving the way for fairer, more inclusive mental health care, and building trust that lasts."
Here’s a quick overview of our work to date to develop our plans, along with our next steps:
Leadership and Governance
• We’ve established a diverse PCREF steering group including patient and carer leads.
• We’ve held Trust-wide listening sessions resulting in co-produced recommended actions for implementation of PCREF.
• We have established three key working groups for PCREF; data, cultural competency, communications and branding.
• Going forward we aim to enhance diversity of the steering and working groups, prioritise and create delivery plans for our recommended actions, and complete the overarching PCREF Implementation Plan.
Organisational developments
• PCREF leads have been identified for all service lines, and across our three boroughs.
• Patients and carers are being supported and encouraged to be involved in co-producing plans, and becoming additional living experience leads for services.
• Listening sessions have taken place locally, highlighting key themes and priorities. Future efforts will focus on expanding uptake of patient and carer lead roles, and co-producing service implementation and delivery plans.
Patient and Carer Involvement
• We’re working with patients, carers, community and system partners and are looking at funding options to strengthen this collaboration. Upcoming actions include creating support frameworks for increased patient and carer involvement, and developing feedback systems for monitoring and evaluating progress.
Data Insights
• Mandatory ethnicity data capture for complaints is now in place, helping us pinpoint improvement priorities. We continue to work towards establishing a baseline for PCREF reporting, and co-producing a dashboard so that Trust performance to deliver on this work can be viewed by all.
Communications
A group of patients with lived experience and carer advocates, community partners and staff are co-producing the PCREF imagery to support the project (designed by a service user). Ongoing outreach via our website and various forums continues, and we’re set to roll out a comprehensive communications plan to raise awareness and engagement, as well launching our PCREF work very soon.
Together, we’re committed to fostering a more inclusive and equitable mental health service for all communities. You can follow future updates on this work on our website.
* A note on language: NHS England use ‘Patients and Carers’ in their guidance related to the Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework. We have used these terms in this article to identify all those living with experience, those using services or have used services, and those who care for them, from racialised and ethnically and culturally diverse groups.
References
NHS England » Patient and carer race equality framework
Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework :: West London NHS Trust