Our Communications and Engagement Strategy sets out the principles we follow when engaging with the public, and the key ways we involve local people in our decision making.
We aim to deliver high quality engagement at all times. Our principles set out what this will look and feel like.
You can find our Communications and Engagement Strategy here.
Appropriately supporting local people to have their say and genuinely influence our commissioning decisions is a priority for us.
We believe that our values and behaviours speak louder than words and have developed a Volunteering Policy to ensure staff offer consistent and appropriate support to individuals who help our work. This includes reimbursement of out of pocket expenses tailored to an individual’s circumstances, but as standard for travel, caring responsibilities and subsistence costs.
We make sure that volunteers have the appropriate level of training and knowledge required to undertake any tasks they are involved in. Examples of this support include:
You can find our Volunteering Policy here.
We involve volunteers who give their time to multiple organisations in the city as part of our partnership responsibilities. It is important to ensure that those people are appropriately trained, supported and reimbursed. Examples of these roles include our Autism Partnership Board (in conjunction with the Local Authority), our Musculoskeletal ambassadors (in conjunction with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals) and Dance to Health volunteers (in conjunction with voluntary organisations).
If you are interested in volunteering with the CCG, please contact us on SHECCG.engagementactivity@nhs.net or 0114 305 4609 to find out more.
We have invested in staff training to raise awareness of the organisation's legal duties around public involvement and equality. In 2019/20 we commissioned the Consultation Institute to provide equality and consultation master classes to our Primary Care Commissioning Committee, Strategic Public Engagement Experience and Equality Committee, GP practice managers and commissioning managers. This training has helped our organisation to be more aware of the requirements and benefits of involving people in our work.
A public involvement toolkit is available to support our staff to involve local people in their work.
The public involvement toolkit can be found here.
We have recently introduced a series of learning sessions for our staff based around the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010. Through these sessions we invite a member of the public or staff member with a protected characteristic to discuss their experience of receiving services and the challenges and barriers they have faced. This is bringing a great insight into the communities we serve and how we can work towards reducing the health inequalities that exist across Sheffield.
All new staff receive a formal induction which includes a session on all disciplines that the organisation is involved with, including involvement and equality.
A number of our staff have also attended NHS England's '10 steps to even better public engagement' training sessions. The slides from this training can be found here.
NHS England have produced a range of helpful bite sized guides to carrying out effective patient and public involvement. You can find them here.