As the Party Political Conference season begins the NHS hits the spotlight.
However, in September 2014, over 250 members of the public gathered to have a day of conversations with the NHS England Board members in an unprecedented event, the first live test of the NHS Citizen Assembly Meeting. The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR) is working with 3 other agencies (Involve, Demsoc and Public-i) to deliver this programme in partnership with the NHS England Public Voice team, headed by Olivia Butterworth.
The 18th September 2014 will go down in history as a tipping point for the NHS. It was the first time that an event of this nature has taken place where Citizens and Board members sat and talked and more importantly, listened to each other to identify common concerns and wishes for the future of the NHS system.
NHS England Commissions over £100bn of health services nationally as well as through working at the front-line with Clinical Commissioning Groups. The National Director for Patients and Information, Tim Kelsey along with Non-Executive Directors Lord Victor Adebowale and Ciaran Devane have up till now led the NHS Citizen programme from the Board level.
During the run-up to the event, TIHR’s Camilla Child and Leslie Brissett led a series of one to one conversations with every board member of NHS England. These meetings set the platform for the programme of Relationships and Culture Change that will be undertaken within NHS England to ensure that NHS Citizen succeeds.
Dr Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organisation in launching the World Health Report 2013, said, ‘We need to change the research landscape. We need to invest in the science of delivery. We must give more attention to the three Ds: discovery, development, and delivery. What are the roadblocks that prevent delivery? This question needs attention.’ In many ways what NHS England has been doing for the last year is to do just that, investing in the science of delivery whilst innovating with co-production between policy makers and citizens. Dr Dione Hills (TIHR) is leading on the research strand of NHS Citizen, and interest in the process as well as the impact of NHS Citizen is growing.
All the events of 18th September were live webcast and can be seen on the NHS Citizen assembly portal.
In addition the updates of regional and other events can be found at www.nhscitizen.org.uk.
The Discover, Gather and Assembly meeting will now refine and further develop their processes and systems. For the TIHR team, the focus now steps up a pace toward the staff and internal leaders in NHS England as the co-ordination of efforts to deliver on the promise of Thursday 18th September’s live test of the Assembly meeting take shape.
For further information contact Camilla Child, Principal Researcher/Consultant
e: c.child@tavinstitute.org
t: 020 7417 0407
