Waltham Forest Council is intensifying its efforts to address health inequalities within its Romanian community, following a significant increase in Romanian-speaking residents between 2011 and 2021. The Health and Wellbeing Board discussed the initiative at a meeting on Monday 14 July 2025, outlining a strategy that combines community insight with targeted healthcare improvements.

The move comes in response to a 162% surge in Romanian-speaking residents, as highlighted in the 2023 Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. Initial findings have revealed persistent health inequalities and barriers to accessing care for this community across north east London. Although the NHS is free at the point of use, many Romanian residents, particularly those with limited English, precarious housing, or recent arrival status, face significant challenges in navigating the system and accessing timely, appropriate care.

According to the report pack for the meeting, the council's approach emphasizes listening to lived experiences and co-producing insights with the community. Engagement is conducted in Romanian by trained Community Insight Researchers, ensuring cultural sensitivity and accessibility.

The engagement work has revealed a complex picture of how the Romanian community experiences health and care in the UK, including:

  • Barriers to health and wellbeing
  • Cultural expectations from health and care
  • Urgent care experiences
  • Language, trust and access
  • Health literacy
  • Specific challenges in navigating health and care

Chart showing Romanian community's trust in different information sources.
Chart showing Romanian community's trust in different information sources.

Romanians in the UK view the British and Romanian healthcare systems through contrasting cultural lenses. The NHS is appreciated for being free at the point of use, corruption-free, and equipped with modern infrastructure. However, it is also perceived as bureaucratic, impersonal, and difficult to navigate, especially due to language barriers and long waiting times. In contrast, healthcare in Romania is seen as more familiar, accessible, and thorough, with a cultural expectation for proactive diagnostics and specialist access.

The engagement strategy includes online and in-person outreach. Online engagement began through existing Romanian Facebook groups and community web pages, which were already trusted sources of information and discussion. Building on this, the council launched dedicated social media channels, including a Facebook group and WhatsApp group, to create safe, familiar spaces for peer support, signposting, and co-production. In-person outreach was conducted in Romanian shops and community locations across Newham and Waltham Forest.

The Health and Wellbeing Board endorsed the identified next steps, championing their integration into local partner health equity plans and allocating resources to ensure recommendations are implemented. The board also agreed to consider the insights gathered when commissioning and planning health and care services across the borough and to identify opportunities for further engagement with underrepresented Eastern European communities in Waltham Forest.

Key next steps identified include:

  • Sharing findings with local health and care partners, including primary care networks, public health teams, and voluntary sector organisations, to inform service improvements and ensure insights are embedded into commissioning and delivery. Insights are already being turned into action to inform vaccination, screening and health prevention programmes locally.
  • Increasing engagement with Romanian clinicians across North East London.
  • Facilitating cross-borough collaboration to share learning.
  • Securing funding to continue in-depth community engagement.
  • Developing a theory of change to articulate long-term vision and outcomes.
  • Exploring possibilities to standardize demographic data collection across partners to avoid broad and unhelpful categories like white other or Eastern European, enabling more targeted and meaningful analysis.
  • Aligning work with population health approaches and neighbourhood health models.
  • Co-designing pilot interventions with the community. Kooth Digital Health has been commissioned to lead a six-month, culturally tailored community engagement pilot (June–November 2025) to improve the mental health and emotional wellbeing of Black boys and young men (ages 10–25) in Waltham Forest.
  • Co-developing a communications toolkit tailored to Romanian audiences.
  • Continuing to use and grow digital platforms as trusted spaces for engagement.
  • Monitoring data on access to services and satisfaction among Romanian residents.
  • Evaluating the impact of pilot interventions and engagement activities.
  • Developing outcome measures that reflect what good care means to the Romanian community.

The council's commitment to this initiative reflects its broader strategy to promote wellbeing, prevent ill-health, and reduce health inequalities across all communities in Waltham Forest. More information can be found on the council's Democracy website.