Understanding the impact of Citizens’ Panels in Integrated Care Systems public engagement

Report

NHS England and Improvement (NHSE/I) commissioned Traverse in summer 2020 to carry out a mixed method impact and process evaluation aimed at assessing how effective Citizens’ Panels have been to date in supporting health and care partnerships. As part of the evaluation, Traverse spoke to 20 ICSs, including engagement practitioners and system leaders, about their experience setting up and running citizens panels.

Key findings from the report:

1. Citizens’ Panels are a reliable and cost-effective way for ICSs to engage a broadly representative sample of a local population.​
2. Senior buy-in, commitment and involvement is necessary to ensure the panels can genuinely influence planning and prioritisation.​
3. Systems have had varying degrees of success and this has been highly dependent on the level of maturity of the STP/ICS and on who was ultimately responsible for the panel.​
4. There are a number of areas that have been able to effectively demonstrate impact, these include: Devon which has been able to directly inform the locality’s Long-Term Plan, Frimley which have used the panel to inform their ten-year strategy, Bristol North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) and Derbyshire, which has used its survey findings to inform primary and secondary digital strategies around access to health services.​
5. Including external stakeholders in the design and planning of the panel itself maximises the opportunity for the panel to be inclusive and to impact on decision-making. ​
6. A panel has value early on in the seeking of feedback to shape decision making as well as later on to gather feedback about decisions made. ​
7. Sharing back the impact of the panel on decision making demonstrates value, avoids tokenism and encourages on-going engagement.

Authors