Health-related street outreach: Exploring the perceptions of homeless people with experience of sleeping rough

Aims To understand how health-related street outreach is perceived by homeless people with experience of sleeping rough. Specialist nursing and primary care services are expected to provide street outreach but there is no specific guidance on how to deliver it. Design A qualitative description study. Method Purposive opportunistic sampling was used to recruit participants from three drop-in centres in London. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted between 4 June 2018 - 28 June 2018 and Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis was used. Results Health-related street outreach was perceived as being able to offer a human connection that reduced the sense of isolation and exclusion commonly experienced on the street. People with experience of sleeping rough felt it could overcome access barriers and provide a bridge to healthcare services. Crucially the right approach was deemed to be essential and was defined by participants in terms of location, timing, the outreach team, and the verbal and non-verbal styles used by outreach workers. Conclusion Health-related street outreach is a valuable health promotion tool for people experiencing homelessness that should be financially supported by healthcare commissioners and employers. Providers of health-related street outreach must adopt the right approach and the development of guidelines could assist services to achieve this. Impact The findings of this study can inform planning and review of health-related street outreach to ensure that the approach taken by healthcare workers is acceptable to, and based on the views of, the people these services are provided for.