How we involve people and communities

We want to hear from and involve as many people as possible to help us plan and shape health services.

There are plenty of opportunities for you to influence local healthcare services – whether that’s through surveys, attending meetings and workshops, joining one of our public advisory or reference groups attached to specific programmes of work or simply by feeding back your experiences (or those of others close to you) to us and other bodies such as Healthwatch Surrey.

• Surveys and consultations – you’ll find more information on the engagement and procurement programmes section of our website, where we’ll also promote opportunities from other health and care partners as they happen.
• Join your local GP practice Patient Participation Group (see your local GP practice website for more information). If your GP practice does not have a PPG you could use this PPG Handbook [pdf] 332KB to work with your practice to set one up.
• Public meetings about health and care
• Attending NHS Surrey Heartlands Board meetings
• Attending meetings of Surrey’s Health and Wellbeing Board
• Via Healthwatch Surrey
• Attending meetings of the Adults and Health Scrutiny Committee
• Join a local hospital or ambulance trust as a Member – see individual websites for more details
• Come along and talk to us at local community events
• Social media – follow us and join the conversation to hear about the latest events, surveys and meetings
• Share your experience of using any of our local services e.g. hospital, community, mental health or GP – you can do that by getting in touch with us
• You may prefer to share your experience with other trusted partners, such as members of the community, voluntary and social enterprise (VCSE) sector who we link in with closely

Please feel free to email us directly if you’d like to find out more:

Email the Engagement team

The lived experience, views and aspirations of local people and communities should run right through the work we do including supporting people to sustain and improve their health and wellbeing and reaching out to those who are often less well served by public services.

Our Involvement and Participation Framework sets out our three-tiered model of public involvement across Surrey Heartlands and includes a set of key principles that underpin how we work with people and communities, at neighbourhood, ‘Place’ and system level.

Neighbourhoods

Working with communities at the most local level, typically across populations of between 30 to 50,000, creating opportunities for collaboration between all our communities and partners from the ground up.

Working across ‘place’

Developing a local approach across each of our four Place-based partnerships (East Surrey, Guildford & Waverley, North West Surrey and Surrey Downs), including support to work at neighbourhood level, working collaboratively with local partners including health and care partners, the boroughs and the voluntary, community and faith sector.

System

Setting a strategic approach across Surrey Heartlands with key principles to guide good practice and ensuring the ‘public voice’ influences and shapes work across our system and is heard at both ICB and ICP level, with overall responsibility for meeting our statutory engagement and consultation duties.

Surrey Heartlands Involvement and Participation Framework [docx] 3MB

Our principles for effective public involvement across Surrey Heartlands, co-designed with local people, are:

1. Putting the voices of people and communities at the centre of health and care decision-making, using insight and lived experience
2. Developing trusted relationships to understand people’s experiences and aspirations, particularly those most affected by health inequalities
3. Building a culture of co-production, insight and involvement across the ICS as ‘our way of doing business’
4. Ensuring involvement is meaningful, demonstrating clearly where actions have been taken and being honest when changes can’t be made
5. Involving people and communities at an early stage when developing strategies and plans
6. Avoiding duplication by understanding and building on insights we already have across the system
7. Working collaboratively with system partners to maximise the impact of involvement
8. Working in partnership with local communities to empower people, particularly at local level
9. Being proactive, going to where people are rather than expecting them to come to us
10. Providing clear, accessible communication/public information about our vision, plans and progress to build understanding and trust

Definitions

• Co-production – this is about developing more equal partnerships between people who use services, carers and professionals so when we are involving people it should be as equal partners
• Co-design – designing services and plans with people and stakeholders so results meet their needs and are usable
• Communities – by communities we mean local ‘communities’ of people, e.g. in a town or area, or a group of people defined by a characteristic or interest

As well as being good practice and a key part of a ‘thriving’ health and care system, there are legal requirements related to involvement and consultation which we need to meet. 

NHS Surrey Heartlands has a legal responsibility – under the Health and Social Care Act 2022, section 14Z45 – for involving and consulting the public in the event of substantial service change.  To ensure individuals to whom services are being or may be provided and their carers and representatives (if any) are involved (whether by being consulted or provided with information or in other ways) as follows:

1. In the planning of the commissioning arrangements by NHS Surrey Heartlands
2. In the development and consideration of proposals by NHS Surrey Heartlands for changes in the commissioning arrangements where the implementation of the proposals would have an impact on the following:
   • the manner in which services are delivered to the individuals (at the point when the service is received by them), or
   • the range of health services available to them, and
3. In decisions of NHS Surrey Heartlands affecting the operation of the commissioning arrangements where the implementation of the decisions would (if made) have such an impact.

We are also responsible for requirements under the Equality Act 2010 and the related duty to reduce health inequalities, which also highlights the need for effective involvement of those with protected characteristics.