Health care response following Grenfell fire was insensitive to residents’ needs, new report reveals

The health care response following the Grenfell Tower fire was insensitive to residents’ needs. That’s one of the findings of a recently released report into the tragedy, in which 72 people lost their lives.

The report by The King’s Fund, which looked specifically at the health and care services that were put in place for former Grenfell residents and the wider community in the aftermath of the fire, also found a history of distrust between Grenfell Tower residents and local public services. People spoken with during the creation of the report also cited examples of how they’d been talked down to or ignored.

Instead of taking into consideration the specific needs and preferences of survivors and the bereaved, the health care response to the fire was ‘decided top-down and based on expanding existing clinical services as a one-size-fits-all approach’, according to the report.

However, the community refused to be silenced and did not simply accept the health care response that had been put in place. Working with health care leaders, they began to shape services which worked better for them.

This reality meant that health care leaders had to adopt a new approach, one which saw them going out into the local community to develop relationships and build up an understanding of what people needed.

The resulting health care approach was person-centred, rather than guideline-driven, designed to be more culturally competent.

As the report states, ‘this work has often been challenging – for example, by requiring staff to change and by acknowledging and confronting racism’.

However, despite significant progress being made, the report says the ‘new ways of working have not yet been developed across all services and, in many cases, are still not well embedded’.

There is also mention of the risk of health care services slipping back to the top-down approach once additional funding runs out. The report outlines that this would be a ‘backwards step’.

The King’s Fund report, People power: lessons from the health care response to the Grenfell Tower fire, is based on a review of literature relating to the fire, in-depth interviews and a workshop with local and national stakeholders. Download the full report for more information.