We are proud of the variety of ways in which we work with people across Surrey and of the expanding collaborations we have with our partners in the voluntary, charity and social enterprise (VCSE) sector and wider communities.
We aim to listen consistently to and act on feedback, whilst supporting people to sustain their health and wellbeing, as well as involving people and communities in developing plans and priorities and continually improving services through:
- Having a deep understanding of our people and communities.
- Using insights and diverse thinking of people and communities to tackle health inequalities and the other challenges faced by health and care systems.
- Continually strengthening our work with people and communities, building on existing relationships, networks and activities.
- Wanting everyone in Surrey and Sussex to have the same chance to live a healthy life, no matter where they live or who they are.
Taking action to reduce health inequalities helps to improve people's lives, lower the cost to the NHS and social care by preventing illnesses and supports the economy by creating a healthier population.
Our principles for working with people and communities
Our Working with People and Communities Strategy provides a framework for involvement activity for the ICB for the year 2026/27.
It explains who we will get involved, when and how we will do it, and how we will use what we hear to improve the services our population receives. It covers work at system, place and neighborhood level; it applies to our programs, service changes and ongoing improvement. It also complements local frameworks and partnerships and supports the organisation’s ability to meet national duties to involve the public.
We aim to:
- Put the voices of people and communities at the center of health and care decision-making, using insight and lived experience.
- Start with people and communities: co-producing priorities and changes, focusing on what matters to local people.
- Ensure involvement is meaningful, demonstrating clearly where actions have been taken and being honest when changes can’t be made.
- Have early involvement before decisions are made.
- Develop trusted relationships to understand people’s experiences and aspirations, particularly those most affected by health inequalities.
- Reach out to those most affected by health inequalities, removing barriers to participation to the best of our ability.
- Collaborate with trusted Voluntary, Charity & Social Enterprises and community partners as equal partners in design, delivery and spread of involvement.
- Avoid duplication by understanding and building on insights we already have across the system.
- Value lived experience and champion diverse voices to shape decisions, including carers, seldom-heard groups and our priority populations.
- Enable joined up engagement across organisations to avoid duplication and engagement fatigue.
- Use robust, independent insight alongside clinical, operational, and financial data to inform decisions and evaluate impact.
- Be transparent and accountable: publish how insight influences commissioning decisions and the outcomes achieved.
- Have toolkits and a framework to consistently meet needs.
- Be proactive and have early communication.
- Continuously learn and improve using feedback, evaluation, and peer review.
- Deliver our legal duties (public involvement, equality, health inequalities) as a commissioning organisation according to relevant national policy.
In practice, these principles ensure involvement takes place as early as possible in the commissioning cycle, use plain language to explain our plans and makes it easy for people to get involved, using both online and face to face methodologies and embedding lived experience. We will empower and commission local community groups.
Legal duties around involvement
As well as being good practice and a key part of a ‘thriving’ health and care system, there are legal requirements related to involvement and consultation which we need to meet.
NHS Surrey and Sussex has a legal responsibility – under the Health and Social Care Act 2022, section 14Z45 – for involving and consulting the public in the event of substantial service change. To ensure individuals to whom services are being or may be provided and their carers and representatives (if any) are involved (whether by being consulted or provided with information or in other ways) as follows:
- In the planning of the commissioning arrangements by NHS Surrey and Sussex
- In the development and consideration of proposals by NHS Surrey and Sussex for changes in the commissioning arrangements where the implementation of the proposals would have an impact on the following:
- the manner in which services are delivered to the individuals (at the point when the service is received by them), or
- the range of health services available to them, and
- In decisions of NHS Surrey and Sussex affecting the operation of the commissioning arrangements where the implementation of the decisions would (if made) have such an impact.
We are also responsible for requirements under the Equality Act 2010 and the related duty to reduce health inequalities, which also highlights the need for effective involvement of those with protected characteristics.