Following a year-long series of projects the NHS England Youth Forum have released reports and resources which encompass their drive to address the issues young people face in healthcare. The reports and resources focus on trans and non-binary rights in healthcare, health inequalities and the experiences of young people with special educational needs and disabilities or long term conditions in educational settings.
Speaking on behalf of the NHS England Youth Forum, Haris Sultan said: “Working collectively with so many passionate young people across the country despite COVID-19 to produce these resources and reports has been so rewarding. The work we’ve been able to produce is direct evidence that when you include young people’s voices at the heart of important and pressing issues, we will not only highlight the issues but find the solutions too.
“We’ve been able to produce three reports on vital issues such as trans and non-binary rights in healthcare, health inequalities for minority ethnic communities and medical education and the experiences of children and young people with special educational needs and/or long-term conditions.
“Young people and professionals working in a healthcare environment now have a set of resources that will lead to young people to having much better experiences and will shape the health system of tomorrow”
The NHS England Youth Forum is made up of 25 young people from across England. The Forum is delivered by the British Youth Council and works in partnership with NHS England to challenge and feed in ideas and solutions regarding health care and services. The British Youth Council established the NHS England Youth Forum in 2014 believing professionals in healthcare could and should do things differently to engage young people in the NHS and to amplify the voice of 15 million under 20-year-olds across England.