As we launch our Access to Services Principles, Barbara and Nicola reflect on their experiences of developing the principles and their hopes for the resource:
Barbara’s Reflection on How We Created the Principles
Barbara from West Cheshire Poverty Truth Commission begins by reflecting on how we created the principles:
Access to services… Where do we start?
Well, that’s the question we were asked, and the answer was to ask more questions!
The first question: What do we want to achieve?
The answer: For everyone to receive equal access to services and be treated with the same respect. regardless of age, position or wealth.
And how do we achieve this? We need to understand what’s wrong with the way people are treated today when they try to access services?
We did this by sharing real experience of, some of which involved extreme difficulties accessing help that was desperately needed.
To share our stories, we needed to feel safe and to trust each other with what was, at times, very personal information. By sharing these experiences that we realised that bad service was not just a minor problem, it was endemic in many areas, including local authorities and the National Health Service.
We spent a long time going over our findings: taking out what we felt was impossible to change, putting ideas in that came to mind, and ensuring that what we produced could be easily read and understood by all. We accepted that there are some things that we can’t change but we made sure to highlight the things that we can.
By working together and respecting each other’s views, we didn’t only concentrate on the bad things. We also asked what went well, so we try to replicate that in other areas.
It was only then, after lots of discussion, that we were able to bring together these ‘Access to Services Principles’.
There’s a principle we like in the Poverty Truth Network: “If you want to go quickly, travel alone. If you want to go far, travel together.”
Nicola’s Reflection and Hopes for the Future
Nicola, from North of Tyne Poverty Truth Commission and member of the Access to Services Amplify Group, shares her hopes for the changes these principles could make:
These principles could really make a difference to the way isolated people access services. Lasting social impact can happen if services are built around the needs of the people who access them.
Becoming a service user is daunting. Often vulnerable people often through no fault of their own, become isolated and plunge into poverty, and are sometimes made to feel guilty for their situation.
People who are experiencing poverty have to negotiate a complex system that is disjointed and not easy to access. There are many barriers, including age limits and postcode lotteries, that make it even harder
These principles are for service providers, policymakers, commissioners and funders. They will be best used alongside input from people with lived experience to share real solutions.
Barriers that exist to prevent access to services are being broken down by Poverty Truth Commissions across the UK. I have been part of this group amplifying this at the national level.
By proposing key principles and identifying who needs to be responsible for them, people like me can help to change things. We no longer need to feel ashamed or excluded because of the poverty we experience.
These principles could help organisations to develop and deliver better services for everyone, particularly those who are struggling the most. I hope that they will be well used.