Social Value
Clarity Consulting Associates (Clarity) worked with the NHS Confederation and partners to develop a Health Inequalities Toolkit for Integrated Care Systems (ICS). The toolkit is a key strategic resource accessed by more than 4,000 individuals, enabling NHS organisations to optimise the impact of their investment, meet regulatory expectations, and drive measurable increases in social value.
Health inequalities—avoidable and unjust differences in health outcomes linked to socioeconomic status, ethnicity, geography, and other factors—remain one of the NHS’s most pressing challenges. Despite significant investment and clear policy direction, Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) across England have consistently struggled to address these inequalities effectively, due to gaps in confidence, clarity, and practical guidance.
In response to this urgent issue, Clarity Consulting Associates (CCAL) led by Andrew Moore ChMC and Dr Karen Smith ChMC, in partnership with the NHS Confederation, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), and Leeds Beckett University, developed a groundbreaking Health Inequalities Toolkit. Delivered within a modest budget of under £50k and completed within nine months during 2023-24, the toolkit rapidly emerged as a pivotal resource, significantly enhancing how NHS organisations strategically address inequalities.
Strategically, this toolkit directly aligns with the NHS’s statutory objectives set out in the Health and Care Act (2022) and supports the critical Core20PLUS5 framework. It fills a crucial gap by equipping NHS decision-makers—previously uncertain and lacking confidence—with clear, evidence-based methodologies. This has enabled leaders across 85% of Integrated Care Systems to better allocate both the dedicated £1 billion inequalities budget and their core multi-billion-pound budgets more equitably and effectively.
The toolkit’s impact has been immediate and profound, quickly becoming one of the NHS Confederation’s most accessed resources, engaging over 4,000 NHS stakeholders. Its strategic value has received high-profile endorsement from NHS England’s Director for Healthcare Inequalities, Professor Bola Owolabi, who described it as “an outstanding, essential resource,” and from Steve Brine MP, Chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, who called it “highly practical and impactful.”
The project’s significance extends beyond immediate usage. Recognising the toolkit’s critical role, NHS England and NHS Confederation recommissioned Clarity for 2024/25 to deliver targeted workshops training Non-Executive Directors (NEDs) of ICBs in embedding health equity considerations deeply into governance practices. This ongoing initiative, prominently featured at the NHS Confed Expo 2025, demonstrates the toolkit’s sustainability, scalability, and potential to create enduring social value.
Furthermore, the toolkit has directly influenced regulatory practice. After partnering on this initiative, the CQC explicitly updated its inspection criteria to evaluate how effectively NHS organisations address health inequalities, embedding this focus into regulatory expectations and elevating its importance as a compliance imperative.
At the heart of this exceptional project lies Clarity’s unique strengths. A small, agile, and highly specialised consultancy, Clarity successfully collaborated with complex NHS stakeholders, regulators, and academic partners. Their flexible and practical approach proved essential in developing a highly effective toolkit, demonstrating that boutique consultancies can drive transformational national impact.
Ultimately, this project exemplifies how targeted, evidence-driven consultancy can leverage modest resources into extraordinary social outcomes. By embedding health equity into NHS leadership decisions and regulatory frameworks, this toolkit significantly enhances community resilience, reduces healthcare costs, and, most importantly, ensures healthier, fairer outcomes for millions across England.
View the Clarity Consulting profile in the MCA Members Directory.