This page provides guidance to support organisations in Leeds to involve local people when they make changes to their services.
Health and care organisations often need to make changes to the services they provide. This might be a change to the way they provide a service, the location of a service or to the range of services they offer. Doing things differently is often necessary to respond to changes in populations, funding, laws and legislation, technology, or medications.
Whatever the reason for your change, it is essential that you involve people when you alter a service. Involving people is a legal and moral duty and we know that involving people means we can provide, safer, more accessible, and cost-effective services.
To support organisations in the Leeds Health and Care Partnership, the Leeds People’s Voices Partnership (PVP) have created a page offering a range of involvement tools and guidance. This step-by-step guide will help you meaningfully involve local people in your decisions and support you to meet your legal and moral duties.
Step-by-step guide
1. Familiarise yourself with NHS England involvement guidance
2. Start with what you know
What insight do you already have about your change and the population it affects? Use the Leeds Involvement Library to search for related documents. Email [email protected] to discuss what we have access to in the library. The guidance below on NHS England’s website is also useful:
Insight - What is already available (PDF)
3. Carry out a Quality and Equality Impact Assessment (QEIA)
This is an essential part of the process, it will help you understand who your change might affect and support you to reduce any negative impacts. You can get a copy of the latest QEIA document by contacting the Integrated Care Partnership (ICB) in Leeds Quality Team on [email protected]
4. Decide how much involvement you need to do
The size and scale of your change will affect the type of involvement you carry out. The simple involvement screening template below will help you assess the size of your involvement.
Involvement screening template
5. Share your plans with any public groups that you work with
Public groups can help you develop your involvement plans and carry out any engagement. This might include the Patient Participation Group (PPG) at your GP Practice.
6. Develop your involvement plan
Having a well-thought-out involvement plan will save you time and ensure meaningful engagement. The involvement plan template below will help you write a simple involvement plan.
7. Prepare letters for your stakeholders
Once you have identified who you need to inform about your change, prepare your letters using the stakeholder letter guidance below.
8. Create a survey
You should involve people in different ways, but a survey is a great way to involve large numbers of people and ensure you get useful feedback about your proposal. It’s also a great start to structure your other involvement activities. The involvement survey guidance below will help you write a simple survey for your involvement.
9. Write up your findings in a report
Use the involvement report guidance below to write a document that is plain English, and clearly outlines how you went about your involvement and what people told you.
10. Feedback to people on how you have used their comments
This is an essential part of the process and will show people how their views have been used to shape your decision. You can use letters, your website, and social media to do this but it is also important to contact community groups directly.
Your tools and resources
Any documents you write should be written in plain-English and with accessibility in mind.
- Alternative format sheet
- Involvement plan template
- Involvement report guidance
- Involvement screening template
- Involvement survey guidance
- Primary care involvement checklist
- Stakeholder letter guidance
Other tools and resources
Here are some links to other resources that we think you’ll find useful:
- Accessible documents guidance
- Equality monitoring form template – (essential for any survey)
- Involvement themes – you can use these to make sense of your feedback
- Levels of change guidance – that will help you understand how much involvement you need to do
- Protected characteristics
Other useful information
- Equality Act, 2010 – Information and guidance
- GP Practices -statutory guidance – framework for patient and public participation in commissioning
- Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) – support for PPGs, including tools and resources
- Planning, assuring and delivering service change for patients – substantial service change guidance