Principles of Engagement

Our People and Communities Strategy demonstrates how we will include patients, the public and stakeholders in our decision making to continually improve services. It also outlines how we will adhere to our statutory responsibilities to carry out effective consultation and engagement and is aligned to our equalities work programme to ensure that we work with our whole population and groups who may be underrepresented.

The principles we follow are outlined in our People and Communities Strategy .

We will ensure that we are always:

  • Open, honest and transparent
  • Accurate, fair and balanced
  • Timely and relevant
  • Reflecting the diversity of our population in our engagement
  • Respectful of all our stakeholders
  • Involving communities that experience the greatest health inequalities and poorest health
  • Tailor and target our engagement to involve different groups, including hard to reach groups
  • Explaining how we will use information gathered through public involvement
  • Evaluating our activities to learn from them
  • Cost effective
  • Clear, using plain English and accessible, in line with the NHS England information accessibility standards
  • These are in addition to abiding by the NOLAN principles as outlined in our Constitution and Cabinet Office consultation principles as well as following values based on the principles for participation identified in the NHS England best practice document “Transforming Participation in health and care”.
  • We will take time to plan well and start involving people at the earliest opportunity before a procurement or service delivery change commences
  • We will make use of best practice and learn from other organisations to focus our approach on making the most positive difference to our patients
  • We will learn from what has worked well and not so well in the past and consider how to apply this learning in the future
  • We will fulfil our legal responsibilities under the Health and Social Care Act, 2012 and Equality Act 2010
  • Our relationships with all stakeholders (patients, our key partners and the public) will be conducted with respect and inclusivity, focused on equality
  • We will ensure that involvement reflects the diversity of our population with consideration for the protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010.
  • We proactively seek involvement from people and communities who experience the greatest health inequalities and the poorest health outcomes, using differing methods. We will ask people how they want to be involved.
  • We will always consider the barriers that may stop people from getting involved and find workable solutions
  • We will use appropriate language and openly share information
  • We will be clear about how people’s involvement will be used and give feedback on the outcome of engagement in a timely manner
  • We will evaluate the effectiveness of our patient experience and engagement activities, sharing and incorporating our learning to enable us to continually improve. Activities will be reviewed by our Patient Council
  • We will demonstrate how patient experience and engagement have informed our decisions and made an impact.
  • The ICB adhere to strict codes of confidentiality, and patient information is held in line with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998.
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