Safe Surgeries

The Safe Surgeries Network, run by Doctors of the World, recognises GP practices that commit to taking steps to tackle the barriers faced by many migrants in accessing healthcare.

Since 2021, we’ve been working with community leaders to champion and drive the Safe Surgeries initiative across south London, supporting GP practices to take steps to tackle the barriers faced by many migrants in accessing healthcare.

Community leaders have worked with NHS leaders to increase awareness of the programme and support sign up. Since 2021, we have seen a 100 per cent increase in surgeries signed up – with a total of 240 now registered.

Alongside this, community leaders carried out an audit of GP practices to understand how the initiative is being rolled out and understand challenges faced.

Based on the learning, a range of important new commitments were made by the Integrated Care Boards to improve implementation of the work. This includes promises to work with community leaders to co-produce and disseminate a patient advocacy guide so migrants can better understand their healthcare rights; embed Safe Surgery champions at a local level to support and encourage GP practices to enact safe surgery guidance; and exploring the establishment of a crossborough network so surgeries can support each other on work around health inequalities. New training has already been carried out with 80 practices and work is ongoing to drive the initiative.

“It’s brilliant that the Safe Surgeries scheme is being implemented, but I think it’s really important that this continues and is rolled out to all GP practices, if possible, as it really makes a huge difference to those individual patients.”

Dr Shazia Munir, a Lambeth GP who specialises in health inclusion, emphasised the value of the Safe Surgeries initiative