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As an organisation that buys and monitors health services for the people of Warrington, we are committed to ensuring that all our processes (both for commissioning and communicating) eliminate discrimination and treat everyone with fairness, respect, equality and dignity.

 

We have adopted NHS England’s Principles of Participation:

 

1. Reach out to people rather than expecting them to come to us and ask them how they want to be involve, avoiding assumptions

2. Promote equality and diversity rather than encourage and respect different beliefs and opinions

3. Proactively seek participation from people who experience health inequalities and poor health outcomes

4. Value people’s lived experience and use all the strengths and talents that people bring to the table, working towards shared goals and aiming for constructive and productive

5. Provide clear and easy to understand information and seek to facilitate involvement by all, recognising that everyone has different needs. This includes working with advocacy services and other partners where necessary

6. Take time to plan and budget for participation and start involving people as early as possible

7. Be open, honest and transparent in the way we work: tell people about the evidence base for decisions, and be clear about resource limitations and other relevant constraints. Where information has to be kept confidential, explain why.

8. Invest in partnerships, have an ongoing dialogue and avoid tokenism: provide information, support, training, and the right kind of leadership so everyone can work, learn and improve together

9. Review experience (positive and negative) and learn from it to continuously improve how people are involved

10. Recognise, record and celebrate people’s contributions and give feedback on the results of involvement: show people how they are valued 

These principles are incorporated into everyday practice, policies and procedures so that promoting equality and diversity is a key characteristic of the whole organisation. 

When we are engaging, consulting or communicating with members of the public we follow standard templates to ensure that we are open, honest, transparent and include as many members of our communities as possible.

You can access the templates we use by clicking the links below:

We have also established a Project Management Office across Halton and Warrington to define and maintain standards for our project management. The Project Management Office strives to give us a standard approach to our work to ensure prioritization of projects and focus our limited resources effectively. It also ensure that engagement is embedded into our commissioning.

Find out more about our Project Management Office.