Medact’s Organisational Strategy 2025–2030: Priority Area
Problem:
Migrant communities experience significant health inequity as a result of systems designed to cause harm and exclude them from care. From ID checks and upfront charging for treatment, to dispersal and temporary accommodation limiting access to primary care. From ‘no recourse to public funds’ conditions removing the social safety net, to racial profiling, discrimination and lack of translation services creating a hostile health service. Practices of bordering underpin these policies, as successive governments work to embed immigration controls through public services.
Health worker role:
Health workers are implicated in administering these policies, whilst also circumventing, subverting and advocating for patients that are being excluded from care. Equally they respond to the symptoms of border violence, supporting people with complex physical and mental trauma in a health system ill equipped to support them. Much of the health community works extensively outside of the NHS to build trust and stand in solidarity with migrant communities facing this violence, from building community justice campaigns to providing signposting and support advice.
Over the next 5 years Medact will:
- Organise with migrant communities across the UK to identify and overcome barriers to care
- Support health workers advocating for migrant patients and challenging barriers to care
- Advocate for health institutions to take action in support of migrant justice
- Develop collective care and mutual aid alternatives that build community power between health workers and patients
Medact’s impact:
- Health inequity in migrant communities is reduced as a result of improved access / less barriers to care
- Health workers have the skills and confidence to resist anti-migrant policies and support migrant patients
- Unified opposition from health institutions makes racist and anti-migrant policies harder to implement
- Health workers and impacted communities have deeper connections and take action together to reduce health inequity
Climate Justice:
Climate change is already forcing people to leave their homes, migrating across countries and borders as more and more areas become unlivable. We will contribute to emergent climate justice work focusing on climate migration, challenging border violence and forced migration as a result of climate change.
