Case study

Model for citizen engagementHow the Citizens’ Panel model facilitates citizen involvement in large transformation projects

SummaryVirgin Care has developed an innovative approach to citizen engagement, consultation and patient involvement to feed into the major transformation projects which take place when we take over a new service. The Citizens’ Panel model provides a flexible framework and tools to engage local people in the transformation of their health and social care services. The model can be adapted to different services in different locations.

So far Citizens’ Panels have been introduced in Bath and North East Somerset, East Staffordshire, Essex, North Kent and West Lancashire

When local people join the Citizens’ Panel they can pick a level of involvement – ranging from being ‘informed’ with updates about projects through to being ‘involved’ in committees and project teams working with Virgin Care’s medics and transformation experts.

An important part of the Citizens’ Panel model is the use of technology which allows people to join the group and once a member to manage and volunteer their own preferences on the kinds of projects they want to get involved in. Technology also means thy can take part in engagement projects from the comfort of their own home.

Local people can influence the development of healthcare services in their area.

IntroductionCitizen Engagement, consultation and patient involvement is a critical element of implementing change programmes both large and small in publicly funded services. Virgin Care’s Citizens’ Panel model is an innovative approach to the problem, providing a framework and tools to enable large-scale involvement of a locally representative panel in transformation projects.

While engaging local people in the transformation of their services is a fundamental principle of public service, effective and meaningful engagement in change programmes helps to secure buy-in from local influencers and the contributions made by local people, whatever their background, improve projects: solving the unsolvable problems, and developing well-reasoned compromise solutions for the difficult decisions all providers and commissioners face.

In use in five areas across the country where Virgin Care already delivers services, Virgin Care has designed the Citizens’ Panel model to provide a flexible framework which can be adapted to any contract in any locality and works with, rather than subsumes or duplicates, existing engagement panels and groups.

Extensively utilising technology, Virgin Care’s model not only makes it easier for people to take part in engagement projects from the comfort of their own home but also provides for fast-turn around projects and ‘micro-engagement’, allowing panel members to input into every transformation programme and influence even small decisions which make a real difference to people who use services.

At the centre of the Citizens’ Panel model is Virgin Care’s use of technology to allow members to manage their own preferences and volunteer their preferences on the kinds of projects they are most interested in getting involved in.

When signing up to join the panel, members can pick a level of involvement –ranging from informed, where members say they only want to passively consume updates about projects – through to ‘involved’, where members can be invited to join committees and project teams and work side-by-side with Virgin Care’s medics and transformation experts.

Members can also express an interest in specific topics or projects as part of the process, ensuring the messages and updates they get from Virgin Care are relevant to their interests.

The system, managed online through www.citizenspanel.co.uk, allows members to log in and change their preferences – or leave the panel altogether – without speaking to anyone, 24 hours a day. The panel system is fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulations with information stored securely by Virgin Care’s technology partner; no information about the person’s own medical conditions is collected.

And it is this technology which allows the Citizens’ Panel’s unique ‘constant recruitment’: the technology means that managing a panel of 2,000 members requires no more resource than a panel of 10 and so the organisation can constantly recruit new members, aim to grow its panel membership each year and target its recruitment to deliver a panel representative of the community the company is serving.

More than 16% of all panel members come from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background

Nearly 20%of all panel members recorded as having a disability

Almost 400Citizens’ Panel members

Technologymakes the model easier for people to take part in engagement projects from the comfort of their own home

Citizens’ Panelavailable in five Virgin Care-run areas (East Sta�ordshire, B&NES, Essex, West Lancashire and Kent)

The systemmanaged online through www.citizenspanel.co.uk allows members to log in and change their preferences – or leave the panel altogether – without speaking to anyone, 24 hours a day

While all NHS providers engage with citizens on significant change programmes, Virgin Care has developed its approach to include ‘micro-engagement’ – smaller changes into which citizens can input their views to influence managers’ decisions – including deciding how the company spends its annual £100,000 ‘Feel the Difference’ fund.

While Virgin Care’s colleagues across the business can ‘bid’ for up to £1,000 of the fund for a project which they believe will help people who use their service, the local community or the people working in the service to ‘feel the difference’ Citizens’ Panel members are asked for their views on the ideas colleagues submit – and their feedback helps the company decide how to spend the money best.

In Bath and North East Somerset, Citizens’ Panel members voted to award funding for new ‘way-finding’ signage at a community hospital but were also keen to avoid wasting money; members turned down some applications which they felt wouldn’t help local people feel the difference.

Whereas, in Essex where Virgin Care is delivering an innovative new model with the Healthy Family and Wellbeing Service, a partnership with Barnardo’s, Citizens’ Panel members are contributing to significant change programmes shaping how Health Visiting and School Nursing services will be delivered for years to come.

And nationally, Virgin Care is working with Citizens’ Panel members from across its contracts to develop outcome measures which allow local communities to more easily understand how local health and care services are helping people achieve their goals.

The first Citizens’ Panel was launched by the company in East Staffordshire, and there members are a crucial part of a transformation programme known as ‘Improving Lives’, itself the culmination of more than two years’ engagement by NHS commissioners. With more than 100 members, the involvement of Citizens’ Panel members in transformation programmes has contributed to Virgin Care’s work to avoid more than 500 (and counting) unnecessary admissions to A&E by providing rapid response nursing services and proactive support.

Since then, Virgin Care has refined its model and technology to provide a framework which can be rolled out and start engaging with local people on ‘transfer day’ – the first day Virgin Care is delivering services.

In Essex, Virgin Care worked with its commissioners to review local people’s experience of the first day of the new service and the transfer period and the feedback is being used by both organisations to improve future projects.

While in North Kent, where Virgin Care is transforming adult community services for a population of several hundred thousand people from Dartford to the Isle of Sheppey, members have the opportunity to contribute to change workshops and surveys about the organisation’s three priorities: standardising services across the area to ensure they are fair and equitable, improving the patient experience and upskilling clinical staff to provide additional services to help people stay well, and living independently.

And with each project the Citizens’ Panel runs, more members are encouraged to join – providing an ever-growing panel of engaged, knowledgeable local people, supporting Virgin Care to deliver commissioners’ vision for the future of health and care services.

Case study correct as at time of printing November 2018

About Virgin CareVirgin Care operates more than 400 frontline health and social care services across England with a difference. We run a wide range services including adult and children’s community services as well as GP practices, walk-in centres and urgent care centres, all alongside sexual health, physiotherapy, dermatology and MSK services. From 2017, we started providing, for the first time, adult social care services to help promote the wellbeing of people to help them live independently for as long as possible with wellbeing and volunteering services available.

Virgin Care Limited and Virgin Care Services Limited are both rated ‘good’ by the CQC following inspections in 2017. Inspectors said that the organisation “could demonstrate through documentary evidence that following acquisition of services, they had managed to bring about a sustained, significant improvement to patient care”.

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www.virgincare.co.uk