The Community Inclusion Team (CIT), part of The Life Rooms at Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust, exists to ensure that people who are often unheard, underrepresented, or excluded can access the same opportunities, healthcare, and support as everyone else. While we support individuals directly, our greatest impact comes from helping organisations understand and remove the barriers that prevent diverse communities from accessing services and achieving positive outcomes.
We work alongside asylum seekers, refugees, Roma communities, ethnically diverse communities, LGBTQ+ people, and others who experience inequalities. Through years of building trust and strong relationships, we have developed a deep understanding of the challenges these communities face. We use this knowledge to advise health and care providers, public health teams, local authorities, researchers, and community organisations on how to make their services more inclusive, accessible, and culturally responsive.
What makes our team unique is our ability to act as a bridge between communities and services. We don’t wait for people to come to us. Instead, we meet people where they are—in community centres, schools, places of worship, refugee accommodation, food banks, and neighbourhood hubs. Listening to people’s experiences allows us to identify barriers that may otherwise go unnoticed and use this insight to influence service improvement and system-wide change.
In 2026 alone, we engaged with people from 46 different countries and supported individuals speaking 26 languages. We delivered more than 40 outreach sessions each month, maintained 100% performance against urgent and routine referral targets, and helped hundreds of people access primary healthcare through GP registration. Behind each number is a person who may have otherwise struggled to access the support they needed.
Alongside our frontline work, we provide specialist consultancy, advocacy, and training to professionals and organisations. This includes Migrant Health Training, Roma Awareness Training, cultural awareness sessions, and advice on effective community engagement. Our aim is to help services better understand the communities they serve, improve cultural competence, and create environments where everyone feels welcomed, valued, and able to access support.
Our consultancy work is grounded in partnership and collaboration. We have worked with NHS vaccination teams to improve engagement with communities where vaccine uptake has been historically low, supported public health initiatives alongside Liverpool City Council and UKHSA, collaborated with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine through the ReCITE community-led research programme, and worked with schools, faith organisations, Healthwatch, primary care networks, and voluntary sector partners to tackle health inequalities.
At the heart of everything we do is advocacy. We ensure that the voices of communities are heard and reflected in decision-making, service planning, research, and policy development. By bringing together lived experience, community trust, and professional expertise, we help organisations move beyond consultation and create meaningful, lasting change.
The Community Inclusion Team is proud to champion equality, inclusion, and health equity, ensuring that those who are often overlooked have a voice, a choice, and fair access to the services and opportunities that can improve their lives.