Public engagement and the NHS in Wales

Key points

• There are two key aspects to public engagement in NHS Wales: helping to inform whole system change; and supporting people to stay well and happy.
• Seamless health and care services will only be achieved if people are put at the heart of our services, including the planning and designing of services.
• We need to engage with the public on the future of health and care services so they understand what the NHS can deliver in the future as demand increases and people’s needs become more complex.
• It is critical to listen to all voices, adapt continually and be prepared to let go of long-held ideas to truly transform service provision. Engagement is not a one-off exercise. People should be continually involved in shared decision-making and provided with the right tools to make decisions, particularly vulnerable people who often feel excluded from the decision -making process. The goal is to achieve an environment where the public feel ‘no decision is taken for me, without me’.
• Successful public engagement is a twoway exercise and benefits patients, clinicians, and the NHS as a whole. Patients get more person-centred and accessible care; clinicians are able to use resources more efficiently with a better understanding of what matters to patients; and the NHS as a whole gets a clearer understanding of what is needed to deliver services in a seamless and integrated way.
• The Parliamentary Review of Health and Social Care recommended that health and social care services need to put patients in control through strengthening individual and community involvement.