Public Involvement in NHS Grampian – An Overview

Policy Background

The National Health Service Reform (Scotland) Act 2004 places a duty on NHS Boards to involve and consult the public when planning and developing services and when there are decisions to be made that significantly affect the operation of these services.

Patient Focus and Public Involvement (2001)

National PolicyFramework covers:Involving people, Patient Focus, Building staff capacity, Feedback/complaints, Patient information, Equality and Diversity (Racial, disability and gender equality duties), Advocacy and Volunteering

Aim is to achieve

  • A service where people are respected, treated as individuals and involved in their own care
  • A service where individuals, groups, communities are involved in improving the quality of care, in influencing priorities and in planning services
  • A service designed for and involving users

Delivering for Health (Kerr Report 2005)

Develop options for change with people, not for them, starting from the patient experience and engaging the public early on to develop solutions rather than have them respond to pre-determined plans conceived by professionals.

The Scottish Health Council, a new body set up by the Scottish Executive, independent from NHS Boards,has a role to assess how well the NHS is doing on involving the public.

What is involvement?

A simple definition - people can be involved in their or a relative’s individual care, in services or at a service planning level.

How much influencepatients, public and carers have when they are involved can vary from just being informed right through to being equal partners.

NHS Grampian

NHS Grampian provides NHS services for about 500 000 people living in Grampian, and these services are overseen byan NHS Board. The Grampian NHS Board is responsible for improving the health of the Grampian population, and for delivering the health care required.

NHS Grampian consists of acute services, corporate services andthree Community Health Partnerships. It also works closelywith the local authorities, voluntary sector organisations and the universities.

There are 3 Community Health Partnerships in Grampian– Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Moray – planning and providing primary and community health services.

Public Involvement in NHS Grampian

NHS Grampian has a Board Committee for Patient Focus Public Involvement (PFPI) – chaired by Elizabeth McDade, Non Executive Board Member. The Committee has recently approved its Action Plan for 2007/08.

NHS Grampian Community Forumis a group of members of the public who work in partnership with clinical staff and managers of NHS Grampian. The Forum meets 4 times a year and has discussed and debated issues such as out of hours services, infection control and nutritional care.

Each Community Health Partnershipis setting up a Public Partnership Forum which will be the main way it engages, communicates and consults with the local population.

The Acute Sector does not need to set up a public forum but is looking at ways to make sure people are involved. The sector has a PPFI Group for staff which meets to share good practice and discuss issues.

The Corporate Communications Team for NHS Grampian has a small number of staff which support the PFPI agenda – public involvement, patient information, equality and diversity, disability discrimination, volunteering and advocacy.

Laura Dodds/Maggie Emslie

Public Involvement Officers

Corporate Communications Team

NHS Grampian

or

01224 553161

May 2007