The council and partners in Durham took an inclusive approach by ensuring that the main NHS providers were included in the decision-making process in order to drive improvements in health and wellbeing and to add value to the current way of working and to ensure a more coordinated patient pathway.
County Durham's Shadow Health and Wellbeing Board accepted assistance from the Local Government Association (LGA) to provide bespoke support and expert facilitation of two events: Shadow Health and Wellbeing Board Development Session and the ‘Big Tent event'. The HWB considered the involvement of LGA external facilitators to be important in the development of County Durham's first joint health and wellbeing strategy (JHWS) and to utilise expertise, including benchmarking against other authorities, as well as provide an overview of the national picture.
The LGA officers provided the board with thinking time to develop a vision for the strategy and also to agree what the most important priorities for County Durham would be. The support of the LGA was instrumental to moving forward with the vision and objectives for the JHWS.
One hundred and fifty-four people attended the ‘Big Tent event' from a range of stakeholders including service users, carers, patients, voluntary and community organisations, NHS and local authority. Attendees have since been given further opportunity to comment on the JHWS through targeted briefings and signposting to the consultation. The ‘Big Tent event' was such a success that there are plans to have this kind of stakeholder event in County Durham on an annual basis, based around the development and review of the JHWS.
Much has been learned throughout this process, centred on having an inclusive and transparent approach. In summary, it is important there is:
-
A clear sense of purpose and priorities
- The board should provide ‘added value'
- Agree a small number of big priorities that the board can influence (for example, during the consultation of the JHWS the number of priorities was streamlined from nine to six).
-
Strong local relationships
- Capitalise on new opportunities for integrated and joint working
- Engage widely with a broad range of stakeholders and formalise this through an engagement framework.
-
Good governance
- Clear responsibility for delivery through governance structures.