Cultivating community connections - How collaborative working in Greater Manchester helped target the vaccine gap
New research shows the importance of community engagement in breaking barriers to healthcare access, as demonstrated during the roll out of the COVID vaccine in Greater Manchester.
A study carried out by researchers funded by the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Greater Manchester (ARC-GM) explored Greater Manchester’s different approaches to address COVID-19 vaccination inequalities amongst minority groups.
During the pandemic, Greater Manchester saw high rates of COVID-19 infection, and disproportionately high virus-related morbidity and mortality, with COVID-19 mortality rates 25% higher than in England as a whole.
Data released in 2021, following the initial phase of the UK’s vaccination programme, highlighted areas and communities where uptake had been low. This disparity was associated with several factors, including socioeconomic deprivation, ethnicity and age.
To address this, NHS and local authority teams across Greater Manchester developed targeted approaches, tailoring these to different communities, with the aim of increasing the number of people accessing the vaccine.
The ARC-GM study, led by researchers from The University of Manchester, involved interviews with key individuals from the NHS and local authorities involved in vaccine delivery activity within Greater Manchester. Researchers sought to capture how the targeted vaccination activities were developed and implemented and what helped and hindered this.
The discussions found that the size and scope of those targeted activities varied between localities, with more diverse areas offering a wider range of bespoke clinics. They also highlighted the important role of community groups or community leaders, to help promote clinics and address community concerns.
Some of the key groups targeted within Greater Manchester included: ethnic and religious minority groups; homeless people; sex workers; asylum seekers; Gypsy, Roma, and Travellers; care home residents; people who are housebound and people with learning disabilities.
Those involved used a range of methods to support the roll-out, including: holding clinics and mobile pop-ups at community venues (such as mosques and churches); collaborating with a Jewish ambulance service to deliver vaccinations to the Orthodox Jewish community; providing ‘community champions’ with knowledge and resources; and door-knocking to raise awareness of local clinics.
Professionals reported that collaborative working between the health and social care system was key to the successful delivery of the vaccination programme. In particular, building partnerships with voluntary, community, faith, and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector organisations was felt to be hugely beneficial for delivery of targeted activities and sustaining these was considered important for future public health programmes.
Study author, Dr Fay Bradley, said:
“This research offers a deep dive into the experiences of NHS and local authority professionals during the implementation of targeted COVID-19 vaccination activities to address vaccine inequity. The findings really highlight the importance of working collaboratively across the whole system to understand the needs and concerns of specific communities and to then adequately engage and address those challenges in a respectful and meaningful way.”
The researchers behind the new study hope that the findings will provide actionable insights to inform future vaccination delivery, including: using evidence informed approaches; co-designing activities through community engagement; dovetailing vaccine delivery with community engagement; ensuring adequate resourcing for targeted approaches; guiding activities with both qualitative and quantitative data; and continued partnership working.
Study lead, Prof. Jo Dumville said:
“The findings of this study demonstrate that successful implementation of targeted vaccination programmes is influenced by several factors. We hope that the key insights gained from this research can be used to inform future targeted vaccination activities, as well as public health programmes more widely.”
In December 2023, the NHS launched a new vaccination delivery strategy for England, the principles of which align closely with the findings of ARC-GM’s study, citing the importance of tailored offerings, local outreach and joined-up working.
Full findings can be found here.
Published 07/05/2025