We are taking an exciting step forward in our journey towards people-powered health.

At its meeting last Friday, the Board of NHS England approved a new patient and public participation policy and statement of arrangements.  It also committed to further action to seek out, listen and respond to people’s views on the NHS.

As the NHS Constitution says, the NHS belongs to us all, so do get involved and have your say.

Tim Kelsey, National Director for Patients and Information, highlighted the importance of the new policy, telling the Board: “Patient and public participation is not a nice to have. It is an absolutely fundamental part, as any customer facing business would realise, of delivering a high quality and effective service.”

Patient and public participation is important for so many reasons. It gives people the opportunity to make their voice heard and influence how the health services they use work.

Working together also helps us to improve the quality of health services and leads to better care and treatment for patients. It enables us to understand the needs of people who have the poorest health, so that we can improve access to services for them, and reduce health inequalities.  Participation also helps us to see things differently and to be innovative, leading to a better use of our limited resources.

Our new policy sets out our ambition to strengthen patient and public participation in all that we do. Our statement of arrangements and guidance on patient and public participation in commissioning show how we meet our legal duty to involve the public in decisions about NHS services. Both documents were developed together with NHS England staff, organisations representing patients and the public, and other key partners.

The policy and arrangements are key to strengthening patient and public participation across NHS England and underpin our work. But the important part is how we put them into practice and ensure the patient voice is at the heart of our decisions.

If you have ideas and suggestions that you would like to work with us on to support staff, share practice and develop ways of embedding patient and public voice in your work please do get in touch.

Watch this space to see how we’re getting on and for updates on how working together is improving health services!