Patient and public engagement
Engagement is a key element needed to help us improve all aspects of health care, including patient experience and health outcomes.
It is the continuing and on-going process of developing relationships and partnerships so that the voice of local people and partners are heard and that our plans are shared at the earliest possible stages.
It also describes activity that happens early on in an involvement process, including holding extensive discussions with a wide range of people to develop a robust case for change.
This can also be used in a pre-consultation stage before any formal consultation or prior to making a commissioning decision which does not require formal consultation.
In our engagements and consultations, we will always ask you to provide us with ‘equality monitoring’ information. This section is optional but provides us with important data about the characteristics of the people we hear from. These can include sex, age, ethnicity, carer status, sexuality, disabilities etc. for example. By doing this, we are able to identify any gaps in our responses; we can then make efforts to include those communities we have yet to hear from. We would appreciate your time and effort in completing that section if you are happy to do so.