Hypertension in pregnancy: diagnosis and management

There is a dedicated section on NICE's website which provides information and advice on how NICE can help you tackle health inequalities.

During 2025/26 NICE plans to take a more strategic approach to its role in relation to health inequalities. More information will be added to this toolkit as work progresses.

NICE's guideline on community engagement: improving health and wellbeing and reducing health inequalities covers community engagement approaches to reduce health inequalities, ensure health and wellbeing initiatives are effective and help local authorities and health bodies meet their statutory obligations.

NICE has published a quality standard on promoting health and preventing premature mortality in Black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups which draws attention to some of the specific areas of inequality for people from Black, Asian and other ethnic minority groups, such as increased health risks, poor access to and experience of services, and worse health outcomes. It aims to support public authorities in considering their equality duty when designing, planning, and delivering services.

The NICE guideline on antenatal care outlines the care that everyone should be offered during their pregnancy. However, those with complex social factors may also have additional needs. The NICE guideline on pregnancy and complex social factors: a model for service provision for pregnant women with complex social factors sets out what healthcare professionals as individuals, and antenatal services as a whole, can do to address these needs and improve pregnancy outcomes in this group.

The NHS Race and Health Observatory have developed 7 anti-racism principles to guide organisations in embedding anti-racism throughout their practices and policies. This evidence-based model of anti-racism is a good start for healthcare organisations and systems to begin to think about the steps needed to help shift the dial on racial inequalities for our communities. To help address the challenges associated with ethnic and racial inequalities, an Anti-Racism Infographic and an associated explainer video have been created by the NHS Race and Health Observatory to guide healthcare organisations and systems in building equitable and inclusive healthcare landscapes.

These resources outline practical steps to foster anti-racist practice, raise awareness, and address racial inequities in healthcare, and have been co-produced with the expertise of members from the Observatory's Stakeholder Engagement Advisory Group, Academic Reference Group, and the Board, to help support healthcare organisations, staff and patients.

The Royal College of Midwives has developed a Decolonising midwifery education toolkit. It has been developed for midwifery educators and other stakeholders involved in planning and delivering midwifery education. The aim of the toolkit is to empower midwifery educators to challenge the implicit and explicit legacies of colonial perspectives in all aspects of midwifery education when they are developing and improving their programmes. The toolkit provides a checklist of considerations for midwifery educators and those involved with midwifery education when recruiting for, planning, delivering and assessing midwifery education.

The Royal College of Midwives has developed a Maternity disadvantage assessment tool (MatDAT). It is a standardised tool for assessing social complexity in maternity, based on women and pregnant people's broad social needs. It guides midwives to identify the appropriate care level and assists with providing personalised care and planning appropriate support. The tool supports multidisciplinary communication and helps services plan resource allocation.

The Sands Listening Project report highlights barriers, biases, and poor care, which might be contributing to inequalities in baby deaths in the UK. The report also shines a light on care that works well.

The RCM i-learn programme provides a training module on Health inequalities: the power of maternity care. The module enables the learner to:

Tommy's provides a helpline for black and black mixed-heritage women. This specialist helpline supports black and black mixed-heritage women and birthing people in the UK with any aspect of their pregnancy journey.

The Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations (MNSI) programme has introduced the Health Equity Warning Score (HEWS) and Health Equity Assessment and Resource Toolkit (HEART) to identify and address systemic inequities in maternity care.

HEWS, a structured risk stratification tool, similar to a maternity early warning score (MEWS), assesses equity barriers such as ethnicity, disability, deprivation, and communication challenges. Since its implementation, HEWS has enhanced the consistency and depth of MNSI investigations by systematically recognising and analysing the impact of inequities on outcomes, including maternal and neonatal deaths. HEWS supports MNSI in developing targeted recommendations to help trusts address inequalities and promote equitable perinatal outcomes.