Filling the NHS sky with rainbows: Reflections and developments from 5 years of the UCLH ‘rainbow project’

Abstract

In 2020 we launched a programme of activity (‘The Rainbow Project’) across our inner city hospital to make services more accessible and relevant to the needs of LGBTQ + young people and families living with a chronic health condition (detailed in Huckridge et al., 2021). In this article, we celebrate the five year anniversary of the project, and share how it has evolved, with a particular focus on the creation of a quarterly group for young people to meet together to support one another and share experiences. We share some of the dilemmas we have encountered and how we have responded to these, and provide inspiration and ideas for other services who may wish to do the same. Additionally, we talk about setting up a ‘Rainbow Advocate’ role for young people, who collaborate with us on further developing and delivering the project. Two of our Rainbow Advocates share their experiences of working on the project and their wisdom for practitioners to take forth into their work.

Plain language summary

In 2020 we launched The Rainbow Project across our inner city hospital to make services more accessible and relevant to the needs of LGBTQ+ young people and families living with a chronic health condition. In this article, we celebrate five years of the project, and share how it has evolved, with a particular focus on the creation of a quarterly group for young people to meet together to support one another and share experiences. We share some of the problems we have encountered and how we have responded to these, and provide inspiration and ideas for other services who may wish to do the same. Additionally, we talk about setting up a ‘Rainbow Advocate’ role for young people, who support us with further developing the project. The article ends with two of our Rainbow Advocates sharing their experiences of working on the project.