NHS trusts play a crucial role in addressing health inequalities by focusing on providing equitable access to services and ensuring patients receive a consistent level of care. Our health inequalities guide for trust board members provides practical steps to ensure trust boards address health inequalities as part of their core business. Taking a strategic approach is identified as a key enabler to making progress; it can provide a helpful roadmap to achieve long term objectives that are aligned with the trust’s overall strategy and identify the opportunities and risks to making progress.

78% of trusts reported that health inequalities are embedded within their organisational strategy and priorities, and half of trusts (50%) have developed a specific trust strategy for addressing health inequalities. However, despite these best efforts we know that trusts can often struggle to overcome the significant barriers that prevent them from making further progress and turning strategy into action.

This review sets out the key components of a successful trust strategy for reducing health inequalities. It is based on desk-based research into a selection of published trust strategy documents and follow-up interviews to better understand the extent to which action on health inequalities has been prioritised.