The Scalpel's Blog

18.09.14

The NHS Citizen Assembly

By James Cartwright

Today saw the very first NHS Citizen Assembly, and with the process very much in its genesis, this was a chance to explain what the movement is all about, before the participants moved onto to discuss five key ‘umbrella’ issues that people had raised.

These were narrowed down from 120 suggestions, with the final five being: ‘access to services’, ‘mental health services’, ‘gender identity services’, ‘young people’s healthcare’ and ‘self-care and personalised services’. Each topic was introduced by someone who had a personal investment in that particular field, with attendees split up for the rest of the day dealing with the subject matters through a mixture of roundtable discussions and activities.

The organisers were also very keen to stress that this meeting had two distinct objectives. Primarily that it wanted to create a sense that progress was being made, but also to see if this particular format was the best way of moving forward.

The forum was introduced by Olivia Butterworth, the head of NHS England Public Voice, who expounded the main theme of collaboration. NHS Citizen is all about letting people have a voice, and is committed to making sure citizens have a route for making the NHS accountable.

The organisers made clear this was not an opportunity to shout at NHS bosses about what they are doing wrong – but a chance to discuss issues and figure out how to move forward together.

This was done in three distinct ways, the first of which was ‘Discover’. This is an online space to bring all online and offline information and opinions together in one location, meaning a full range of issues can be dealt with. Next is the ‘Gather’ stage – where issues found in ‘Discover’ can be escalated and brought “to the door of the assembly”.

The ‘Assembly’ phase is the opportunity for those people involved in the discussion to bring their issues to the NHS board face to face and for a collaborative process to take place – occurring by meetings taking place twice a year.

Throughout the entire process, the NHS hopes to bring about a culture change in the way the organisation is run – with organisers stressing that the board are on a “journey to listen”, giving them a duty to engage, something which has been lacking since its inception almost 70 years ago.

With initial social media reaction to the event positive, this is the start of a long overdue but highly relevant conversation surrounding the entire culture of the NHS.

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