Our approach

Our approach

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1 July 2022


Public engagement and involvement have always been recognised as key enablers in supporting effective health and social care service planning and delivery across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.

To rebuild new and improved services that address inequalities and better support individuals, families and communities, we need to listen to local people. We need to go out into communities and talk to people about the issues that matter to them and find out what we can do to support them. 

Our Working with People and Communities Strategy outlines our new approach to public engagement and involvement, including the key principles that underpin our new ways of working. It has been produced in collaboration with partners and stakeholders and will continue to develop alongside the Integrated Care Board and the Integrate Care Partnership. You can also watch a short animation that sets out the ICB’s ambition for working with people and communities:

We recognise that our local people and communities need to be at the heart of everything that we do, informing all of our plans and priorities. As such, we have been developing systems, processes, groups and initiatives to optimise these activities, including:

A system-wide People and communities assembly

A system-wide People and Communities Assembly – which reports to the ICB through the Quality Committee. The membership is aligned with the voluntary sector alliance and the health and care senate and it acts as an advisory board to the ICS on it’s approach to involvement and engagement, supporting targeted engagement with seldom heard communities.

A people’s panel

A People’s Panel - an online people’s panel to carry out/ support regular survey research amongst local communities across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent. The panel is largely ‘demographically representative’ of the population, but is being developed further to provide a robust and flexible way for the ICS to put people’s aspirations and experience front and centre of all that we do.

A system-wide intelligence observatory

A system-wide Intelligence Observatory – a resource that is being developed with local authority colleagues. The central observatory will help to reduce duplication and support a more efficient and effective use of resources across all partners. It will also help to alleviate involvement fatigue and frustration from communities, who feel they are constantly repeating the same information several times to multiple partners - supporting the principle of ‘do it once and do it well’.

Community champions

Community Champions –local authority-led champions, responsible for reaching out into communities to understand the issues that matter to local people, including potential barriers to accessing services.

Online forums

Online forums using platforms such as Engagement HQ to support engagement on different topic areas as well as the opportunity for people and communities to highlight the priorities that matter to them.

Regular community conversations

Regular Community Conversations – where health and care professionals come together with public and stakeholders to discuss health and care issues.

A stakeholder bulletin

A Stakeholder bulletin – which is developed using input from all partners (but managed centrally) and adapted and tailored to communicate targeted key messages to staff and local communities across the ICS footprint.

Accessibility support

We will have arrangements in place to make the events as accessible as reasonably possible, for example for people with learning disabilities, who cannot access information digitally or have a sensory impairment. If you have a specific requirement or can support us in making our groups accessible, please contact mlcsu.involvement@nhs.net or phone 0333 150 2155.