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Working with people and communities 

Listening to the experiences of people living and working in Norfolk and Suffolk is vital in helping people live longer, healthier and happier lives. It helps us make sure that care and support is designed around our population, which we know results in improvements in people’s health, wellbeing and care.

How we work in partnership with people and communities  

There are many ways that we listen to and work with local people. These include:

  • Running surveys, focus groups and workshops.
  • Including local people as members of forums, participation groups, committees and boards. 
  • Involving people in research.
  • Holding formal public consultations.

If you’d like to share your views, please visit our dedicated online community.

Our principles for working with people and communities 

Here are the ten principles we follow when working in partnership with people and communities:

  1. Ensure people and communities have an active role in decision-making and governance.
  2. Involve people and communities at every stage and feed back to them about how it has influenced activities and decisions.
  3. Understand your community’s needs, experiences, ideas and aspirations for health and care, using engagement to find out if change is working.
  4. Build relationships based on trust, especially with marginalised groups and those affected by inequalities.
  5. Work with Healthwatch and the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector as key partners.
  6. Provide clear and accessible public information.
  7. Use community-centred approaches that empower people and communities, making connections to what works already.
  8. Have a range of ways for people and communities to take part in health and care services.
  9. Tackle system priorities and service reconfiguration in partnership with people and communities.
  10. Learn from what works and build on the assets of all health and care partners – networks, relationships and activity in local places.

These principles are taken from national guidance. The national guidance includes text, pdf. and easy read versions.