Case Study Sustainable Health Care Unit: A new approach to reducing health inequalities in Kent and Medway 3 July 2025 Share Share on Linkedin Share on X Share via email Case Study Cardiovascular disease Kent and Medway Health and care professionals Summary NHS Kent and Medway, Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex (KSS) CVD Prevention and the Innovation for Healthcare Inequalities Programme (InHIP) team worked collaboratively to develop and implement a new approach to reducing local healthcare inequalities through their newly established Sustainable Healthcare Unit (SHCU). The SHCU is a resource that helps teams in the Kent and Medway System to take data-informed actions to improve population health outcomes. Creating the SHCU involved NHS Kent and Medway building a team of experts both internally and externally to design, disseminate and evaluate an action plan to tackle a specific health problem. Its launch focus was hypertension and lipid management, with a view to adding other clinical conditions following evaluation. Challenge Health organisations have a varying approach to using data to address population health problems, often due to a lack of time, training, and resources. The SHCU aims to level up these disparities to create a standardised and collaborative best-practice approach across the Kent and Medway system. How we helped Invited to embed ourselves within NHS Kent and Medway’s team, Health Innovation KSS drew on its deep experience in designing, delivering and evaluating innovation programmes to tackle health inequalities to supplement the wealth of clinical knowledge NHS Kent and Medway had situated for this programme. We shared insights from our work on the Innovation for Healthcare Inequalities Programme (InHIP) and helped to develop the SHCU’s education offer. This included developing resource packs and supporting the planning, delivery and evaluation of a webinar series. How Kent and Medway are measuring success The success metrics for the initial phase of the SCHU approach are: To treat 71.3% of individuals with known hypertension to nationally recommended target during 2025/2026. To create a sustainable model that can be replicated across further healthcare priorities. Early observations indicate that the SHCU has strengthened NHS Kent and Medway’s population health and behavioural science approach. Practices are utilising the resources for Hypertension and Lipid Management in various ways, such as pharmacy-led, to deliver healthcare in a sustainable manner. NHS Kent and Medway has reported that, as of March 25, the SCHU approach has: Successfully treated 63.9% of all patients with hypertension. NHS Kent and Medway provided support consistently across all practices, the practices that were worked with intensively improved by 12%. For cholesterol, 39.1% of patients have been successfully treated, surpassing our target of 36.8% by 2.3%. 17,000 more patients were seen to and treated accordingly. Potential economic impact Over the next three years, it is estimated that: If 69.1% of patients are treated to target: 60 heart attacks will be prevented, saving £433k 89 strokes prevented, saving £1.23m If the current ambition of 71.3% of patients are treated to target: 199 heart attacks will be prevented, saving £970k 134 strokes will be prevented, saving £2.77m “The SHCU is a population health approach that innovatively builds a team of experts around a specific problem to shape a bespoke solution. Health Innovation KSS have been an integral part of this team acting not only as a critical friend with knowledge and experience of implementation but also providing hands on support in terms of project management when required to enable progress. This has led to a successful collaborative approach that will continue into further clinical areas as the SHCU progresses.” – Dr. Malti Varshney, Director of Strategic Change and Population Health, Kent and Medway ICB. Spread and scalability Our next phase of support for Kent and Medway involves helping to evaluate the programme and identifying opportunities for innovation spread, including adoption and scaling. If the SHCU continues to prove successful within the clinical areas of hypertension and lipid management, the following steps will aim to develop the approach across wider cardiometabolic conditions. For example, lessons from this SHCU trial will next inform the implementation of the SHCU for diabetes. This will also use PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) to ensure continuous learning and improvement.