This Faculty is the first independent, multi-disciplinary body focused on the health care of homeless and other multiply excluded people. Its primary purpose is to re-affirm the fundamental rights of homeless and other excluded people to be treated with dignity, compassion and respect.

By crossing professional and organisational boundaries, for the first time the Faculty is able to focus on what the patient wants and needs and shape care around him or her. Through this approach, the Faculty is able to develop standards of care for the most vulnerable wherever and however they need it, whether that is in the community, in specialist care such as mental health services or in emergency medical care. To ensure that no aspect of care or experience is overlooked, people with lived experience of homelessness are essential members of this Faculty.

Chaired by Professor Aidan Halligan and managed by Pathway, there are now more than 180 clinicians and people with experience of homelessness in the Faculty. Members include bicycle paramedics, podiatrists, dentists, professors of epidemiology and infectious diseases and practice, specialist and district nurses and psychiatrists.

Following publication of the first set of standards for health services for homeless people, the Faculty has begun work on:

  • Examination of the multiple arrangements for gathering and sharing patient data across services relevant for homeless people
  • Developing shared approaches to clinical governance for homeless health services
  • Publishing an updated version of the Service Standards for Homeless Health, and developing new standards to describe good quality services for vulnerable migrants

The faculty is currently free to join and membership is open to any health worker who works directly with homeless patients. Membership to the Faculty is also open to people with personal experience of homelessness and an interest in changing health services.

The Faculty’s 2014 International Symposium took place in London on 5 and 6 March 2014.

For more information about the programme that took place, click here speakers, service user feedback please take a look at the short report we produced following the event.

Mental health service interventions for rough sleepers – guidance

In autumn 2013 the Faculty was delighted to endorse new mental health guidance developed by a partnership of London Borough of Lambeth, Thamesreach, South London and the Maudsley NHS Trust and the Greater London Authority: Mental health service interventions for rough sleepers contains practical guidance on the use of the Mental Capacity Act and Mental Health Act on the street and is particularly relevant for outreach teams and any workers seeking to engage with rough sleepers.  The report and accompanying assessment forms are available on the Faculty publications page here. The working group has provided extensive free training for relevant London-based workers.

Homelessness health and inclusion – improving the health of the poorest fastest conference, London, 27 and 28 February 2013

The Faculty held its first international conference in February 2013 and published a press release calling on the NHS and the Government to take action. Delegates described our first conference as inspirational. Read more about it here.

Standards for commissioners and service providers

In 2011, with a launch event hosted by Professor Steve Field, Chairman of the Government’s Inclusion Health Board, Pathway published the Faculty’s first set of standards for health services for homeless people. The purpose of the standards is to define the essential qualities required for effective health services for homeless people and other multiply-excluded groups.