Over the last two years, predecessor CCGs in south east London boroughs received national recognition for the quality of engagement they undertook with local people. Engagement with patients, their families and the public enables us to make decisions underpinned by a clear understanding of patients’ and carers’ experience, public views, concerns and aspirations. Understanding people’s experience of health services is vital to helping us improve experiences for them and other patients.
Our aim is to build on the good work happening in our boroughs. We will base our engagement activities on:
- evidence of what works well
- national and local best practice
- applying the principles for engagement that we have developed with local people.
You can read about how the CCG developed it approach and has involved people in its first year.
The CCG also has an out of pocket expenses policy in place.
We will continue to involve local people at neighbourhood and borough levels through the work of the borough teams and the local care partnerships in each borough. There will be occasions when we need to engage with people across borough boundaries and sometimes across south east London.
We will reach out to people and communities so they can be involved in a consistent way. We are committed to address the inequalities and barriers to participation and involvement of seldom heard groups in south east London, including:
- young people
- people who have been disproportionately impacted by Covid-19
- people who have difficulty in accessing health services
- people yet to develop health conditions
- people from our LGBTQI+ communities
- people living in areas of deprivation within our boroughs
- people from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities.
To support our engagement with local people and ensure that we hear from all communities across our boroughs in our decision-making, especially those whose voice is seldom-heard, the CCG is establishing an engagement assurance committee. The committee will help the CCG plan how we involve local people in our work and provide assurance on engagement the CCG has carried out. This committee will report directly into the Governing Body, which includes a lay member for patient and public involvement and a clinical lead for engagement.
Crucial to delivering effective and meaningful engagement, it will be our ability to demonstrate how people’s feedback and comments are used to inform the decisions made by the CCG to improve patient outcomes. We commit to making this part of the way we operate, and will seek to review the impact that new services and initiatives have on the health and wellbeing of our communities.
Principles for engagement
The CCG has worked with local people over the summer through several task and finish groups to develop a set a principles for engagement which were agreed at the Governing Body meeting in September 2020. These principles will inform the engagement work that the CCG carries out.
You can contact the CCG’s engagement team by emailing selccg.engagement@nhs.net.