Engagement Reports and using your feedback

We have been working across health and care partners in South Yorkshire and with our Deaf British Sign Language (BSL) Using Community to hear more about how health and care services need to improve to meet their needs. You can read more about what they told us here, and an update on what we have done with what they told us here.

Our Start with People citizen involvement strategy sets our how we put the voice and views of people living and working in South Yorkshire into the way decision makers design and develop health and care services, develop polices and plans to improve health and reduce health inequalities.

You can view the citizen involvement report that helped us develop our Start with People strategy.

Public consultation on two new proposed health centres in the Bentley and Rossington areas of Doncaster took place in 2023. Read the full update here.

We did a baseline report using insights provided from our partner organisations to help understand people's views on women's health in South Yorkshire. Read the report here.

Shaping the NHS South Yorkshire Joint Forward Plan - What Matters to You - The Conversation Continues

Read the full involvement report for our What Matters to you - The Conversation Continues exercise that was used to shape the contents of the NHS South Yorkshire Joint Forward Plan here

The appendix showing the open text answers to our online survey can be read here

The appendix showing the open text answers to our street survey can be read here

Our 'You said, We committed' document shows how feedback we have received has influenced the content of the Plan and can be read here

Request for public feedback on our South Yorkshire NHS Joint Forward Plan

In March 2023 the South Yorkshire Integrated Care Partnership published our initial Integrated Care Strategy for South Yorkshire with a commitment to continue to engage and involve people and communities as we translate it into action and delivery. 

Further to that, NHS South Yorkshire (also known as the Integrated Care Board) together with Partner NHS Foundation Trusts in South Yorkshire were required to develop an NHS Five Year Joint Forward Plan by the end of June 2023, to set out how NHS organisations in South Yorkshire will arrange NHS services to meet both the physical and mental health needs of our local population and fulfil the aims identified in the Integrated Care Strategy.

To help shape the Joint Forward Plan we continued to ask our citizens ‘What Matters to You about your Health and Wellbeing’ and used the findings from this to influence the content of the plan.

We have now submitted our draft Plan to NHS England and we would like to thank South Yorkshire Citizen for their feedback on our draft plan. ​​​​​​

Please note, this is a delivery plan for NHS organisations and has to be shared with NHS England for them to understand our plans and so is a long and technical document, as it needs to be to cover the requirements of us. However, as part of our commitment to engaging with our citizens we are also developing an Executive Summary which is more accessible and an Easy Read version.

The full report, which is 86 pages long (without appendices), can be read here.

The easy read version can be read here.

The summary version, which is 8 pages long, can be read here.

The final Joint Forward Plan with incorporated stakeholder feedback will be taken to the 6^th September NHS South Yorkshire Board meeting and available on our website as a final document at this time.

The plan highlights a whole raft of actions that the NHS will undertake and there will be many opportunities for our citizens to get involved and have your say on these programmes and projects going forwards.

Please visit the Get Involved part of our website for more details on opportunities to get involved.

To read the reports of the findings on the South Yorkshire Integrated Care Partnership What Matters To You campaign click here. 

Since 2014 Sheffield health organisations have commissioned a pharmacy service to be provided over extended opening hours, including into the evening, weekends and all public holidays. The current contracted service provision comes to an end on 31 March 2024.

The lead commissioner undertook a review to understand the place of an extended pharmacy service in Sheffield to meet the requirements of the wider health and social care system. Over the years, the service provider has expanded the pharmacy offer beyond what has been specified in the contract. The service excels in providing high quality extended pharmacy services that are delivered throughout all core and extended hours. It now operates as a pharmaceutical, health and social care critical back up to all system resilience needs in Sheffield and beyond the boundaries.  In essence, a ‘central pharmacy hub’. Examples of additional services that are offered that respond to system back up needs include:

• Central provider of emergency contraception
• Pregnancy testing and condom distribution to vulnerable groups
• Services and support for Homeless population who are unable to access GP provision
• Services and support for substance misuse patients
• Enabling access to seldom heard groups for service provision e.g. Hepatitis C testing (unfunded), vaccinations

• Supporting marginalised groups, such as asylum seekers, to navigate accessing the health care system
• Providing medicines supply and urgent pharmaceutical advice to social care sector
• Providing urgent care to residents of Rotherham, Barnsley, Chesterfield and further afield

Patient involvement

Existing patient experience information was compiled including Care Opinion, NHS.net, Google reviews, Pharmacy patient surveys, NHSE contractual records, Sheffield Healthwatch and local complaints records. When analysed, these showed overwhelming positive feedback from patients and service users. Involvement activities over the last 4+ years with members of the Improving Accountable Care forum consistently support the value of the current service.  The current service has a robust mechanism to respond to any concerns or complaints and to implement necessary adjustments and improvements as required.

An EHIA was completed which highlighted the importance of the current service for protected and vulnerable groups and where it serves to address health inequalities. This EHIA helped to identify key groups that would be required to engage with, including homeless population, sex workers, asylum seekers, and social care staff.

A survey was devised to understand how people in Sheffield used the currently commissioned Extended Pharmacy Service and what their thoughts were about the service.  The survey was live from 10 May to 5 July 2023 (8 weeks).  It was distributed to the following organisations:

• Bluebell Wood
• Changing Futures
• Cygnet Hospital (young adult mental health)
• Fitzwilliam Centre (ex-offenders)
• Healthwatch
• Integrated Care Board website
• Phoenix Futures (addiction care)
• St Luke’s Hospice
• Sheffield Carers Centre
• Sheffield City Council social care
• Sheffield community pharmacies
• Sheffield general practices
• Sheffield Health & Care Public Forum
• Sheffield Working Women’s Opportunities Project
• Wicker Pharmacy

There were a total of 64 responses received from a broad range of people representing all of the seldom heard groups targeted and those experiencing health inequalities. Some of the responses received were from support organisations which provided perspectives of whole client groups e.g. substance misuse patients.

The feedback provided useful insight into views about the service which complements other sources of involvement and feedback already received. The findings highlighted the reasons why people use the current service such as trust, communication, compassionately working with vulnerable groups, availability of time and location, and the range of services available. They were also suggestions made as to how the service could expand and offer more services especially in light of changes to primary and urgent care. This insight will be used to design an updated specification that more accurately reflects the expanded offer that the service provides.

The decision to continue commissioning the service was approved by Sheffield Place Executive Team in July 2023. A procurement process is now being planned which will include experts by experience in the design and evaluation. Plans are also being produced to include experts by experience in the monitoring and continuous improvement of the service.

Read more about our work in partnership with Mencap and Sheffield Voices to talk to people about learning disability services in Sheffield here

Read here about our consultation on the new health centres in Sheffield.

Click here to read more about our involvement on the Commissioning Policies alignment work.

Click here to read more about how we kept patients at Flying Scotsman Health Centre informed about changes to the ownership of their GP practice, and how they could be involved.

Click here to read more about how Sheffield’s NHS, Sheffield City Council, and the local voluntary and community sector involved people to review and update our plans about how we can help people in Sheffield to live well with their dementia.

Click here to read our findings so far from our engagement around early onset type 2 diabetes.