London Health Commission – Researching the lives of Londoners

The London Health Commission was an independent inquiry established in September 2013 by the Mayor of London. The purpose of the inquiry was to examine how London’s health and care can be improved for the benefit of the population. The Commission was able to bring together the Mayor of London with the NHS, local government, the health industry and the wider public to address these challenges.

The London Health Commission focused on five key themes:

• Healthy lives and reducing health inequalities;
• Improving quality and integration of care;
• Enabling high quality and integrated care delivery;
• Strengthening the health economy and research; and
• Engaging Londoners.

To ensure the London Health Commission’s recommendations were fully grounded in the lives of Londoners an extensive research programme was undertaken.

The key themes of the research programme include:

• Health behaviours – Attitudes and beliefs related to lifestyle factors.  What barriers  Londoners have to adopting healthier lifestyles. Attitude towards responsibility for own health and care.
• Health and care delivery – How, where, why people access care, and how often. How people would like services to change and adapt to better meet their needs and expectations. People’s expectations of health and care services and priorities for access.
• Information – What information people would like to be able to access about their own care and their expectations of health and care services sharing information to support their care.

Technical note

There were three core elements to the research:

• Adult telephone survey - Ipsos conducted 5,002 interviews among adults aged 16+ living in London between 26 May and 23 June 2014. A core survey of 4,002 interviews were conducted amongst a representative sample of Londoners aged 16+, with quotas set for age, gender,  working status and borough of London. A boost of1,000 interviews was conducted amongst a representative sample of Londoners aged 65+, with quotas set on age, gender and region of London.
• Children and young people survey - Ipsos conducted 800 interviews among school children in years 3-10 living in London between 23 May and 23 June 2014. Interviews were completed using a face-to-face quota methodology. Quotas were set on school year, gender within school year, ethnicity and working status of the head of the household. Four discussion groups were conducted with young Londoners between 9 and 18 June 2014. All were conducted face-to-face and in London. Two discussion groups were carried out with 14 and 15 year olds (one with boys and one with girls) and each lasted two hours. Two discussion groups were carried out with 16 to 18 year olds (again, one with boys and one with girls). These lasted three and a half hours each.
• Research with vulnerable audiences - This strand of the research covers the following ten audience types: adults with learning disabilities, adults with severe and enduring mental illness, adults with severe physical disabilities, adults living with cancer, adults living with dementia, children with long-term conditions, children with learning disabilities, carers, homeless people and excluded young people.  Across these audience types, this element of the project included:
  • 36 telephone depth interviews with front line and head office staff supporting vulnerable people (‘gatekeepers’).
  • 12 face-to-face depth interviews with front line staff supporting the homeless (‘gatekeepers’).
  • 25 face-to-face depth interviews with vulnerable people.
  • 1 paired face-to-face interview with a vulnerable person and their carer