At the heart of our role as a new integrated care board is the commitment to listen consistently to, and collectively act on, the experience and aspirations of local people and communities. (Where we talk about people and communities we refer to people of all ages including children and young people).

This includes supporting people and communities to sustain and improve their health and wellbeing, as well as involving people and communities in developing plans and priorities, and continually improving services.

The insights and diverse thinking of people and communities from across South Yorkshire are essential to help us build on all the strengths within those communities and tackle health inequalities and the other challenges faced by our health and care system.

By listening to the public that we serve and co-designing our services, our decisions are much more likely to meet the aspirations of all our communities, especially those with the greatest health and care needs.

Our citizen involvement strategy, ‘Start With People: South Yorkshire’, sets out how we will do that. We believe it will help us to build the organisation we want to be. An organisation where we work openly and transparently with our communities, the people who use our services, carers, staff, stakeholders, and our partners, and where their views positively impact on quality, safety and people’s experience of services and translate into improved outcomes.

NHS England has published statutory guidance for Integrated Care Boards, NHS trusts and foundation trusts on working with people and communities. It supports us to meet our public involvement legal duties and deliver the Health and Care Act’s ‘triple aim’ of better health and wellbeing, improved quality of services and the sustainable use of resources. Additional guidance also helps us to ensure we are delivering our legal duties, for example this briefing on urgent/ temporary changes.

To view our citizen involvement strategy 'Start with People: South Yorkshire' click here.

The guidance supports NHS organisations to build collaborative and meaningful partnerships with people, including by working with the VCSE sector to understand different communities’ needs and to involve them in decisions about health and care services.

If you have any questions please contact us at syicb.involve@nhs.net.