East and North CCG Communications and Engagement Strategy November 2019 – March 2021

Contents Introduction ...... 2 About our area ...... 2 Our communications and engagement work ...... 3 Insight ...... 4 Principles of our communications ...... 5 Our channels ...... 6 Policy and legal context – our duty to engage ...... 8 Communications and engagement priorities ...... 9 Governance ...... 17 Monitoring and evaluation ...... 17 Appendices ...... 18

Introduction

This strategy sets out the proposed communications and engagement priorities of East and CCG. The strategy will be reviewed and updated on a regular basis and has an end date of March 2021, when the local health system is due to change significantly.

The strategy is designed to support the CCG’s overall strategic objectives and takes into account the NHS Long Term plan and our organisation’s role as a key member of the Hertfordshire and West Sustainability and Transformation Partnership, which is committed to delivering the Long Term Plan’s objectives locally.

This is a high level strategy which will be referred to when creating individual communications and engagement plans to ensure a consistent approach.

About our area

East and North Hertfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is the organisation responsible for commissioning (planning, designing and paying for) NHS services for 597,000 people registered at 57 GP practices across the east and north of Hertfordshire.

The CCG is made up of local GPs and health professionals, working together with other clinicians and patients, to decide how the local NHS budget of £724m should be spent. The services commissioned by CCGs include: • planned hospital care • rehabilitative care • urgent and emergency care (including out-of-hours and NHS 111) • most community health services • mental health services and learning disability services • GP services

The population of East and North Hertfordshire is diverse and spans five district or councils’ areas: , and Hatfield, East Herts and North Herts, with the exception of Royston, which falls into and CCG’s area.

The health and wellbeing of people in some of our communities is not improving at the same rate as others. Every year, far too many people suffer avoidable ill health or die earlier than they should – this is known as health inequality. These inequalities need to be tackled to make life better for everyone living in our area.

Overall, Hertfordshire generally has better health outcomes compared with the rest of the country. This reflects the fact that Hertfordshire is a more prosperous area than average – as we know that health outcomes are closely linked with levels of deprivation. If we compare health outcomes for Hertfordshire with those in other areas that have similar levels of deprivation, there are opportunities for improvement. Reviewing the health of the population of Hertfordshire as a whole can mask the stark differences in people’s health outcomes between and within different district or borough council areas. For example:

• Life expectancy for women in is two years longer than in north Hertfordshire. In the area, the life expectancy gap is 8.9 years between the most and least deprived areas of this borough. • More people in the borough of have been diagnosed with diabetes than other areas of the county • Stevenage generally tends to have poorer health outcomes than other districts in the county. • Deaths from heart disease are more common in Stevenage than the rest of Hertfordshire. Hertfordshire’s Director of Public Health has produced a detailed report looking at the state of the county’s health. This is available on Hertfordshire County Council’s website.

More information on the makeup of the local area can be found by district at: https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/microsites/herts-insight/home.aspx

Our communications and engagement work

The communications and engagement team aims to support the CCG’s strategic objectives, to support the CCG’s stated mission to:

• Reduce health inequalities and achieve a stable and sustainable health economy by working together, sharing best practice and improving expertise and clinical outcomes.

• Work with patients, managers and clinical colleagues from all sectors to commission the best possible healthcare for our patients within available resources.

The overarching aims and objectives of our communications and engagement activity can be categorised in seven key areas:

• Supporting the public and other local stakeholders to understand and access the NHS services they need, reducing health inequalities through the provision of high- quality information and resources. • Working to ensure that CCG staff, volunteers and the third sector feel informed about, engaged with and valued by the organisation. • Supporting the CCG through the commissioning cycle and service changes with high- quality co-production, engagement, consultation and implementation support and advice. • Supporting GP member practices and the newly-developed Primary Care Networks in our CCG area to feel fully engaged with and supported by the organisation. • Protecting and maintaining the reputation of East and North Hertfordshire CCG as a high performing organisation at a time of significant system change. • Supporting the wider health and care system through joined-up information and awareness campaigns including cancer prevention and detection, winter health, flu and NHS 111. • Ensuring that the CCG is fully engaged with the work of the STP, the delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan and the emerging ICS and ICP organisations.

Whilst everyone is responsible for maintaining and protecting the good reputation of our CCG, as subject experts, our team supports a wide range of colleagues to develop honest, consistent, concise and informative communications to support the organisation to achieve its objectives and meet its obligations.

Our engagement activities were officially assessed as ‘Good’ by the NHS and Improvement Integrated Assessment Framework in 2019. Our clearly articulated action plan, evidence of ‘you said, we did’ responses to the public and detailed information about the ways we enable residents to get actively involved with the work of the CCG were all praised in the feedback we received.

We are working on implementing the assessor’s advice to produce a specific ‘vision’ statement about public involvement, give more assurance at Board level of public involvement activity and the difference it makes, and enhance the evidence and outcomes of the work we undertake to engage with under-represented communities.

Insight

Understanding the information needs of the different groups of people we serve, known in communications terms as our ‘audiences’, is essential to our communications and engagement work. Through our awareness of people’s attitudes, habits, behaviours and preferences we can ensure our communications are as meaningful and effective as possible. A stakeholder analysis and mapping exercise will be carried out during the planning process for every communications and engagement campaign. Our experience of listening and talking with a range of stakeholders and assessing the effectiveness of various communications methods or ‘channels’ helps to guide our team as we consider what channels are the most appropriate for each task and how each demographic likes to receive information. For example:

• The circulation and news content of traditional printed local newspapers are in decline. Online newspaper content has a sizeable audience but stories need to be short and visual in order to be taken up by news editors. • New technologies and a more fragmented media landscape are giving people more control over when and how they access content. As a result, we need to work harder to break through the noise and engage with these groups. • There are greater time pressures and competing demands on our audiences than ever before, which means that our communications have to be as relevant and engaging as possible. • Societal factors like longer life expectancy, changing family make-up, household structure and shifts in traditional ‘life stages’ now demand more sophisticated segmentations of our audiences in order for our communications and engagement messages to remain relevant to people’s lives.

Our experiences show us that taking messages directly people in their local communities, rather than expecting them to come to us in formal meetings, is an effective, but time- consuming way of meaningfully engaging with our residents. The CCG’s volunteer patient participation groups help to boost the organisation’s communications and engagement activities using their local links and networks. We have access to an extended network of engaged stakeholders who can help share our messages. An example of this is through

the targeted ‘OWL’ neighbourhood watch network which sends messages directly to thousands of individuals each week based on their location. Around 200,000 people are signed up to OWL across Hertfordshire, and receive targeted emails so it is a new and exciting channel for us. We also use the Hertfordshire County Council network of email bulletins and our partner organisations’ social media accounts.

Principles of our communications

To achieve our objectives our communications and engagement will follow these principles:

1. Be clear and accessible: All communications with be written in plain English, avoiding jargon, acronyms and complicated language, with different formats available where possible. In particular, work on key campaigns will include ‘easy read’ materials for people with learning difficulties and where possible, information in other languages will be made available.

2. Be empowering: Involving our patients, the public and stakeholders as joint partners in decisions made about services they use. Where possible communications activity will be co-produced with a range of people such as carers, patients or people with a disability.

3. Be embedded into everyday: It is everybody’s business to ensure patient views and experiences influence our everyday practices. All CCG colleagues can assist us with being as effective and efficient as possible by getting us involved at an early stage.

4. Be timely: Our communications will be delivered at the right time, allowing adequate time for voices to be heard through any engagement process. We will feedback and demonstrate change with encouraging messages of ‘you said we did’.

5. Be collaborative: We will work with other organisations, for example in the statutory, voluntary and community sector, to help us get our messages across. Every member of our communities and our networks have the right to have their voices heard and for their views to be taken into consideration.

6. Be accurate: All communications will deliver an accurate picture of the current landscape and all engagement will be clear and realistic in its outcome at the start.

7. Be meaningful: Engaging with our patients, public and stakeholders will be meaningful and add value to the CCG, with experience and insight being fed into the decision- making process at a formative stage of the commissioning cycle.

8. Be innovative: We will review and adapt our communications and engagement to reflect new tools and methodologies to constantly improve our approach. We will leverage the opportunities available through digital approaches such as social media.

9. Be representative: We will open up more opportunities for people to give their views and feedback, to ensure better representation from the communities we serve. We will also continue to do targeted work with the ‘seldom heard’ in our communities such as young carers and people with a learning disability.

10. Be evidence-based: We will evaluate our methods of engagement and the communications channels we use to ensure they remain fit for purpose. Feedback will be gained through engagement with our messages and events, as well as the Integrated Assessment Framework and the national 360° CCG feedback process. We will ensure our activities are cost-effective by reviewing their impact.

Our channels

We use a range of channels appropriate to the target audience of a particular campaign. The tools and channels we use will evolve to ensure that they continue to meet the changing needs of the organisation and the changing behaviours of residents. We work to ensure that we use cost-effective methods of reaching audiences, working to share best practice and maximise the use of resources available by coordinating with local and national partners. It is important to use printed materials and posters on occasions to ensure that nobody is ‘digitally excluded’ from accessing our information.

a) Face-to-face communications Our communications and engagement team values face-to-face engagement very highly. Listening to and learning from people’s experiences and understanding of health services is very informative and helps us to ensure that our work meets people’s information needs. Word of mouth is one of the most influential communications methods and our own staff and volunteers are the best ambassadors for health and wellbeing messages.

As a matter of routine, communications and engagement staff fund and help to coordinate the quarterly Patient Locality Network meetings, which feed information to, and draw from the network of practice-based Patient Participation Group meetings. We promote and attend the STP ‘Winter Warmer’ partnership events for older people and have information stands at district and borough council public events such as ‘Health Fest’ in the Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council area, ‘Shout about Stevenage’ and the information day at Cedars Park, . The CCG’s ‘Future Heroes’ annual interactive health and social care careers fair for children and young people has been so successful that it has now been adopted as an STP-wide endeavour.

Whenever possible we run information stands at stakeholder events, including the annual Health and Wellbeing Board conference. We attend the AGMs of our provider organisations and take part in health and wellbeing information events in libraries and other community locations.

b) Digital communications Digital channels are easy, free and accessible for most people. The majority of Hertfordshire residents have access to a smartphone and 91% of people use the internet at least once a month (source HCC residents survey 2019).

The most used social media network is currently WhatsApp, with 77% of internet users in Hertfordshire using it, followed closely by Facebook at 69%.

Social media enables the organisation to quickly share information and updates with a wide range of followers and plays an increasingly important role in communications,

particularly in relation to fast-changing and developing incidents or health issues. It also provides a useful vehicle for sharing health information and advice and encouraging feedback from service users, staff and local organisations. The CCG has a corporate Twitter account (@ENHertsCCG), a Facebook page (www.facebook.com/enhertsccg ), an Instagram account (@enhertsccg) and a YouTube channel which are monitored and updated regularly by the communications and engagement team.

We will continue to use the social networks that support our work and grow our numbers of followers through effective engagement and good quality content. We also target information at specific audiences by using the channels they follow, rather than relying on people following our own channels. For example, a message targeting mothers will be placed on ‘mums’ groups on Facebook.

Our website is currently being re-developed sot that it continues to be an effective resource for people who want to find information relevant to their health needs.

We provide a number of resources for general practice and GPs. The GP website shares administrative information including locality meeting papers, locality information packs and Consolidated Funding Framework resources. For clinicians, we provide improved access to priorities forum policies and the clinical pathway site currently has over 220 treatment pathways in the searchable library. c) Print and broadcast media The media remains an important channel for getting our message across to residents, although it has become increasingly difficult given the fragmentation and budgetary constraints affecting local media. The media we target to get our messages out should be based on evidence about where residents get their information from – ensuring our messages have the most impact. 71% of Hertfordshire residents looked at a national or local news story online in a week*.

We have relationships with the local newspapers: • Welwyn and Hatfield Times (readership numbers 25% of Welwyn Hatfield residents)* • Bishop’s Stortford Independent (read by 10% of east Hertfordshire residents)* • The Comet (read by 10% of Stevenage residents)* • Hertfordshire Mercury (read by 12% of east Herts and 9% of Broxbourne residents)*

We also work with broadcast media when a story is particularly newsworthy, including BBC Look East, ITV Anglia and BBC .

There is no longer a specific east and north Hertfordshire local radio station though we do work to get our information onto Heart Hertfordshire (20% of Hertfordshire residents had listened to this in the 7 days when as asked) and BBC Three Counties Radio (6% Herts residents had listened in the last 7 days). The community radio station ‘North Herts Radio’ can also be used.

(*figures from HCC residents survey 2019)

d) Partnership working With a range of organisations working to achieve similar outcomes and with a range of contacts at their disposal, a key part of our communications and engagement strategy is working in partnership with other organisations.

A monthly STP-wide meeting of health and care communications professionals takes place where communications and engagement objectives and best practice is shared and ideas generated. This helps to ensure that our activities are co-ordinated and that the impact or ‘reach’ of campaigns is maximised. This approach facilitates good relationships between organisations, cost and time-effective joint working on campaigns, best practice sharing and the opportunity to gain support and momentum for campaigns.

Policy and legal context - our duty to engage

Under the National Health Service Act 2006, as amended by the Health and Social Care Act 2012, CCGs have a duty to involve the public in their commissioning role (under sections 14Z2 and 13Q respectively).

In addition, statutory guidance set out by NHS England in Patient and public participation in commissioning health and care (published May 2017) sets out 10 key actions for CCGs to ensure public and patient involvement is embedded in our work. These are:

1. Involve the public in governance 2. Explain public involvement in commissioning plans/business planning 3. Demonstrate public involvement in annual reports 4. Promote and publicise public involvement 5. Assess, plan and take action to involve 6. Feedback and evaluate 7. Implement assurance and improvement systems 8. Advance equality and reduce health inequalities 9. Provide support for effective involvement 10. Hold providers to account

This strategy seeks to ensure that engagement is truly embedded into each part of the commissioning cycle as shown in this diagram:

Engagement in the Commissioning Cycle, Patient and public participation in commissioning health and care: statutory guidance for CCGs and NHS

Communications and engagement priorities

The mission of the CCG, mentioned at the start of this strategy, as well as our overarching aims and objectives, are at the forefront of any planned communications and engagement activity.

Since the launch of the NHS Long Term Plan both the CCG and the STP have been working to ensure the work of both organisations are aligned to the national aims which include improving health and wellbeing, better quality of care and better value for taxpayers. The national priorities are reflected at a local level in to both CCG and STP priorities. The team also works to support the Hertfordshire Health and Wellbeing Board’s priorities and the implementation of their campaigns, such as the recent focus on loneliness.

As a small team, the priorities for communications and engagement need to be focused on activities that will make the biggest impact for patients. As such we have agreed to focus on the following projects.

1. Primary Care

a) Primary care networks

The development of primary care networks (PCNs) will enable patients to access more proactive, personalised, coordinated and integrated health and social care, but they are in their infancy. Twelve were set up in July 2019 and our area’s GP practices will work more closely together in groups, together with other health and care staff in their local area. This includes being headed up by Clinical Director roles, with other

key clinical roles being introduced over the course of three-five years, including social prescribers.

We will raise awareness of PCNs and the part they play in community health and wellbeing and our engagement work will focus on how patients’ views should be heard at PCN level. We will work to raise the profile of PPGs in their local PCNs and encourage them to work more closely together across boundaries. This work will be developed at the PCNs progress. b) Practice engagement

A well-established system of GP communications is in place through CCG channels including regular bulletins and a specialist website, whilst face-to-face opportunities include locality-based meetings to monitor activity, plan and develop practices. For engagement activity to play a part in creating opportunities to connect practices and share best practice, we need to go beyond building relationships with PPG representatives alone. The communications and engagement team is working on the following objectives with the Primary Care Development team:

• Sustain effective and meaningful communications between the Primary Care Commissioning Committee (PCCC) and east and north Hertfordshire GP practices. • Develop awareness and understanding of the PCCC and its work amongst interested members of the general public. • Support GP practices to engage with their patient populations over matters of service design and change, and ensure examples of good practice are shared through channels including the GP bulletin and website so that everyone can benefit. • Gather public and stakeholder views, including feedback from GP practice work such as surveys, to inform PCCC decision making. c) Premises developments and practice changes

In 2019, work began on a number of projects either led by the CCG or initiated by practices. These have included proposed and agreed practice mergers, relocations and surgery closures. The approach favoured by the engagement and communications team is to be informed and involved in early discussions about each project to ensure that registered patients have their say and can give feedback in different ways.

Each project needs an individual approach, depending on its unique circumstances.

These types of projects will continue until April 2021 and the communications and engagement team will continue to engage with practices, patient representatives, stakeholders and CCG colleagues to help to smooth the way for changes and to ensure that we meet our legal duty to involve the public. Depending on the circumstances and the scale of each project, this will be either be through supporting practice managers by providing advice and support or sharing the responsibility for patient engagement work with practice managers.

d) Extended access

There has been large scale engagement on the introduction of ‘extended access’ GP services in east and north Hertfordshire. Working with our GP practice members we surveyed our patient population and received more than 17,000 responses which informed the design and development of the service across our different geographic localities.

The Consolidated Funding Framework for 2019 / 2021 includes a patient survey element promoted within GP practices since August 2019 which has had nearly 20,000 responses. The data shows just under 40% of respondents have heard of extended access appointments at their GP practice. We will develop a plan to raise awareness of these appointments so that patients themselves ask for one even if they are not offered by staff.

e) Consolidated Funding Framework

The Primary Care Consolidated Funding Framework (CFF) supports targeted investment in primary care in order to improve population health. GP practices are not required to take part, but by meeting the requirements of the CFF each year, they benefit from extra funding based on the number of registered patients they have.

The CFF elements which focused on engagement and patient representation in 2019/20 required practices to ensure people know how to make their voices heard at practice level. A wide-ranging practice based patient survey was also undertaken and more than 20,000 responses were received. These have been analysed centrally and were reported back to practices who met the criteria to receive responses from at least 2 per cent of their registered patient cohort. These practices are considering the results with their patient participation groups (PPGs) to explore how the issues raised will be addressed. GP practices are then required to feed back their improvement plans to patients.

Planning for the next round of CFF work is taking place and emerging themes are around managing conditions, supporting the ageing population, and improving the safety and patient experience wherever care is delivered.

2. Public health campaigning

a) Flu vaccinations

The flu vaccination season is a key target for comms activity. We work with the Hertfordshire County Council Public Health team and use NHS England and Improvement and Public Health England resources to share compelling information about the benefit of flu vaccinations with our residents. Using national materials helps to ensure all the organisations in our STP area promote the same messages across the system and effectively target those who are most vulnerable.

The aim of our campaigning work is to increase the number of flu vaccinations administered, helping to prevent flu outbreaks, particularly in care homes and hospitals in order to prevent death, further hospital admissions and care home closures. We also aim to counter misinformation and confusion over the flu jab and reassure people about the safety of the vaccine.

Flu vaccination messages are delivered as part of a wider winter health campaign every year from October to March. Channels used include press releases, social media messages, videos, targeted advertising (such as parish newsletters), case studies and infographics.

b) Immunisations

There are a range of immunisations in addition to the flu vaccine which we need to promote locally. With the rise of misinformation, particularly online, we need to ensure clear and consistent messaging across health services. We promote the toolkits provided by Public Health England and NHS England and Improvement on topics such as reminders about the MMR vaccination before the university term starts and in advance of the summer festival season. We also work with the county council’s public health team and Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust on their promotion of immunisations for pre-school and school- age vaccinations for children, and support our GP surgeries to do the same with the provision of posters and waiting room screen information.

c) Cancer screening

Alongside the patient-led Cancel Out Cancer campaign (more information in the patient led campaign section) work to increase the update of cancer screening opportunities will continue. We will amplify national campaigns such as ‘Be Clear On Cancer’ locally.

3. Patient-led campaigns

a) Cancel Out Cancer

We have worked with two of our patient members who sit on the Cancer Steering Group and Cancer Research UK to develop an interactive engagement workshop which can be delivered to community groups. The objective of the campaign is to improve awareness of cancer signs and symptoms and increase the uptake of cancer screening opportunities in our area. The development of this community education and engagement campaign has made great progress in 2019, with more volunteer trainers trained and approximately 100 people taking part in the 60-minute sessions. The local branch of the national cancer charity Macmillan is now supporting the campaign.

For the second year of the campaign, we will: • ensure Cancel Out Cancer has a strong online presence, including a dedicated social media page for improved marketing and engagement • continue to increase the number of volunteers trained in delivering the sessions • work with schools to start to engage younger people in cancer prevention.

On the back of the success of Cancel Out Cancer, we will explore opportunities for other Cancel Out... campaign work, to encompass dementia and diabetes.

b) Young people ‘Take Over’

As part of the national ‘Takeover Challenge’ initiative, we have worked throughout the year with members of the ‘Carers in Herts’ Youth Carers Council, creating a young Executive Team to explore address their priorities.

The group of young people, aged 11 to 17, shared their experiences as carers with us and learnt more about NHS services during visits to East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust (ENHT), Hertfordshire Community Trust (HCT), and the CCG, as well as spending a day learning about mental health services. The outcomes of this project have included the introduction of a ‘passport’ of benefits and discounts for young carers and changes to the CCG’s contracts with our biggest providers, to ensure that needs of young carers are taken into account.

Whilst the project with these young carers ends at the end of 2019, we plan to continue our positive relationship with Carers in Herts, working on the priorities the group highlighted which include an app that the carers lead at ENHT has developed with them, and improving mental health services for young carers.

We plan to continue the Takeover Challenge project in 2020 with a new group of young people aged between 12 and 25 years-old with learning disabilities, identified by the Learning Disability Partnership Board. This will help to progress the objectives of the Big Plan for Learning Disabilities, launched in March 2019, which aims to help people with learning disabilities to be healthy, independent and involved in their communities. c) Long term conditions

To help support people to improve their health and wellbeing, the CCG is creating a new Long Term Conditions Strategy. Patient involvement has been a pivotal part of this, with enthusiastic representatives taking part in two workshops in 2019 to share their experiences and ideas, commenting on a draft version of the strategy.

The strategy includes the following objectives for communications and engagement:

• A campaign tackling awareness, prevention, and living well at the end of life • A central point of information for all long term conditions which patients, carers and health care professionals can access • A rolling education programme relating to living with, and managing, long term conditions which is accessible to everyone and relates to real life situations.

Through their involvement, patient representatives have been able to speak out about how important effective two-way communication with them is in managing their conditions. The suitability of the patient information provided and the importance of non-digital information, such as leaflets, have both been raised.

We will work closely with the CCG’s Project Management Office to create engaging and informative materials that are produced with patient representatives

and ensure they continue to be fit for purpose for the lifetime of the Long Term Conditions Strategy.

4. Supporting STP priority workstreams

The CCG will continue to support and lead key STP workstreams. Our communications activity will support the objectives of these workstreams, particularly the priority areas of frailty, planned care and children and maternity.

5. Supporting patients to access the right services

A key focus for the CCG is supporting patients to access the right NHS service when they need it. Services can be confusing for lay people so we will keep messages as simple as possible:

a) NHS 111 and Integrated Urgent Care

Urgent and emergency care is developing and it is important to regularly communicate the range of services available. Our usual messaging about out-of- hours services will have a focus on the New QEII Urgent Care Centre, following a summer 2019 engagement on its opening hours. Key messages must be clear and simple and encourage people to seek advice from NHS 111 before they travel.

The strategy for this promotional activity is to focus on a ‘digital first’ approach, with sponsored and free social media and web-based information playing the major role, supplemented by some printed materials at key sites.

In collaboration with provider trusts and local organisations, we will communicate the urgent and emergency services available overnight, including at the New QEII Urgent Care Centre, informing and engaging through:

• Raising general awareness of the 24 hour opening of the service • Helping the public and stakeholders to understand NHS services that are available overnight, and that NHS 111 is the best initial port of call. • Maintaining positive relationships with key stakeholders during the next few months to enable understanding of the decision made at the end of the process, whether that is that usage has increased and 24 hour service continues to be viable or that local needs are best met elsewhere • Involving stakeholders in proactively promoting the services so that they share the responsibility of helping to ensure that usage increases. • Engaging GPs, community and other professional colleagues so that they are positive about the services that they provide or direct patients to.

b) The NHS App

The NHS App has been developed by NHS England and Improvement to help people in England get more information about their health and care and take control of how they use NHS services. Available to download on all IOS and

Android devices, it allows users to book appointments at their GP surgery, manage repeat prescriptions, view their GP medical record, set organ donation preferences and much more. Promotion will include external and internal sharing of the communications toolkits prepared by the NHS.

c) ‘WaitLess’ App

The STP has procured technology to enable the provision of ‘real-time’ information about our urgent and emergency care systems, in order to help plan for and manage the demand for services. The aim is to improve patient care and to ensure that urgent and emergency services are delivered effectively and efficiently.

Development is ongoing on a patient-facing app, ‘WaitLess’, which could be of benefit in our area, helping to raise awareness of urgent care alternatives to A&E. Herts Valleys CCG is leading the development of an STP-wide communications campaign to promote the appropriate use of this technology from winter 2019 onwards.

6. Internal communications

a) HR and organisational development

Working with the CCG’s HR and organisational development team, we will promote a focused calendar of key events, while also delivering the following activities on a regular basis:

• Weekly news round-up for CCG staff • Charter Chat – staff magazine - quarterly • Learning hour for staff – weekly • Chief Executive staff briefings – quarterly • Laptop screensaver messages • Intranet maintenance • Corporate induction presentations • Updating office noticeboards/displays • Providing media training for spokespeople • Attending staff partnership forum meetings and promoting outcomes • Administration, management and meetings

b) Development of the ICP and ICS and change management

Between now and April 2021, the development of an STP-wide ICS and place- based ICPs will progress. Our internal communications will need to ensure that staff are kept informed of changes as and when they happen. We will continue to work with communications and engagement colleagues in our neighbouring CCGs to ensure consistent messaging.

7. Stakeholder relationships

A key priority for the CCG is working with partners across the system. Hertfordshire County Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee and Healthwatch Hertfordshire are engaged with in advance of planned service changes or decisions, so that they can be fully briefed and lend their support and expertise.

A stakeholder newsletter is issued every quarter to update and inform our partners and stakeholders of the work of the CCG.

8. Urgent and emergency communications

A ready-to-use toolkit of key messages is prepared and agreed annually for use across the system in the event of a spike in A&E attendances or ward closures, due to infectious outbreaks.

Severe weather communications toolkits are also prepared and ready to use in the event that we need to share important health related information in times of extremely hot or cold weather.

9. General / everyday communications

The communications and engagement team routinely carries out a range of ‘business as usual’ activity which sits outside campaigning activity. This includes:

• GP/Practice Bulletin – fortnightly • Maintenance of the GP, CCG, STP and New QEII websites • TV screen slides for GP waiting rooms – monthly • Urgent GP information cascade via the localities team – when necessary • Stakeholder briefing – quarterly • Producing the annual report and the Annual General Meeting • Supporting the quarterly Patient Network Quality meetings • Media monitoring, planning and reporting - responding to media enquiries and preparing statements/arranging interviews • Maintaining the closed Facebook group for the CCG’s patient participation groups • Replying to urgent information requests from the Parliamentary briefing team • Social media – promoting health messages to the public, responding to messages • Updating corporate and project websites • Producing the ‘Herts Health Matters’ patient e-newsletter - weekly • Coordinating the CCG 360 stakeholder survey - annually • Attending Patient Commissioning Group meetings • Programme of attending community events throughout the year • regional communication meetings • Regular meetings/briefings with health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, local MPs and Hertfordshire Healthwatch • Emergency planning meetings/training

Governance

The communications and engagement team is well placed within a network of supportive colleagues and groups. We work with the STP communications team on a regular basis.

We also have a variety of regularly arranged meetings with other communications groups which include the County Comms network (with district, borough, county council and police communications colleagues), the East of England comms network (for NHS organisations in the East of England) and the national Campaigns Reference Group (NHSE and PHE).

One way in which we provide governance assurance on engagement to NHS England is through the Improvement and Assessment Framework (IAF). This is an annual submission of information and data to demonstrate through evidence how the CCG:

• involves the public in governance • implements assurance and improvement systems • holds providers to account.

The CCG received an overall ‘Good’ rating for the 208-19 IAF and our ambition is to move towards ‘Outstanding’.

The board assurance requirement will now be more clearly satisfied as the CCG has a Lay Board Member for Public and Patient Involvement who will work closely with the communications and engagement team, adding her expertise at a planning and development stage where possible and providing assurance to the Board directly and in person.

The communications team is involved with the collation and creation of the annual report, including all elements of the document. We also produce a public facing, ‘user-friendly’ summary document every year. This information is shared digitally and in print at the Annual General Meeting, which is also organised by the team.

Monitoring and evaluation

We will ensure that campaign activity is monitored and evaluated so that we know that our delivery and tactics are having the required impact. We will evaluate our communications activity in the following ways:

• The media – measure media coverage, assessed as either positive, neutral or negative. • Perceptions – through the CCG 360 stakeholder survey and patient surveys • Through the quantitative data sources available to us, for example web hits and social media engagement and attendance at our events • Through stakeholder support and involvement with our campaign work – for example stakeholders sharing our messages or calls to action • Through outcomes – for example, assessing whether a communications and engagement plan helped a project to meet its objectives, such as the number of community blood pressure checks administered, fire safety checks on the back of winter warmer events, and through meaningful patient involvement in the procurement process.

Equality and diversity

We are committed to ensuring everybody, irrespective of their, age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, (including nationality and ethnicity), religion or belief, sex (male/female) or sexual orientation should have equal access to services and that services should, as far as possible, be sensitive to individual needs.

We are also committed to ensuring our workforce can respond fully to the needs of all our patients and service users. To help us to achieve this, our staff, where possible, should reflect the diverse communities we serve, as this can make a significant contribution towards equitable access and commissioning appropriate and sensitive services.

People tell us how much they want to be more involved in shaping local health services to ensure they are better tailored to meet the needs of a diverse range of people. This could be around improving local services to ensure equal access for all, and the way that we help people to hold us to account for the way that services are provided.

The national NHS Equality Delivery System (EDS2) is a tool-kit that will help the CCG to monitor and improve the services we commission for our local communities, enabling us to meet the Public Sector Equality Duty of the Equality Act 2010. Two of the aims of EDS2 are ‘better health outcomes for all’ and ‘improved patient access and experience’.

The Communications and Engagement team are making a significant contribution to support the CCG in implementing EDS2 to improve the way in which people from different groups are treated as service users, carers and employees.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Outline communications and engagement calendar

Appendix 2

Public Health England campaigns calendar

Calendar Nov 2019- March 2021

Nov Dec Jan Feb Ma Apr May June July Aug Sep 20 Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar 19 19 20 20 r 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 21 21 21

Winter health including: Winter health including: Flu, NHS 111 and stay well this winter Flu, NHS 111 and stay well this winter NS Help us help Healthcare Help us help you: G you: worker flu Pharmacy advice

AI Pharmacy advice vaccination

S Cervical MP

H screenin CA N g Where to go for help out of hours: QEII UCC and NHS 111

Annual report: S

T Including summary C

E document J AGM

O PR

CCG

K A TBC

R

S RE

C WO I ST Staff Staff survey Know your Staff Staff survey results published: numbers: survey survey reminder Tell staff action BP tests for launched: remind s plan for the year staff Promote ers Speak up Beverl Beverley Beverley Beverley Beverl Champion ey staff staff staff staff ey staff recruitment and briefin briefing briefing briefing briefin

promotion g g

L Christma NHS National Jeans for Staff flu A

N s jumper health walking jeans and vaccinatio

R day checks month: Macmillan ns E

T for Staff step coffee

IN over competiti 40s on Charter Chart Charte Charter chat Charte Charter chat mag er r chat mag r chat chat chat mag mag mag mag Weekly all staff email

1 30.10.15

GP GP GP GP GP GP GP GP GP GP GP bulletin GP GP GP GP GP GP

S A

bulletin bulletin bulletin bulleti bullet bulletin bulletin bulletin bulletin bulletin bulletin bulletin bulleti bulleti bulleti bulletin

S n in n n n

S

E

L Waiting Waiting Waitin Waitin Waiti Waiting Waiting Waitin Waiting Waitin Waiting Waiting Waiting Waitin Waitin Waitin Waiting N

A room room g room g room ng room room g room room g room room slides room room g room g room g room room

SI

U S

U slides slides slides slides room slides slides slides slides slides slides slides slides slides slides slides U B slides Nov Dec Jan Feb Ma Apr May June July Aug Sep 20 Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar 19 19 20 20 r 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 21 21 21 Self-care 1 time to 13 Diabetes Mental Carers 1 2 Sep organ Breast Self- 1 time to 13 week Decembe talk Marc preventi health week August donation cancer care Decem talk March r World day h – on week awarenes – world week awareness week ber day – no Aids Day no s week breastf month World smokin smoki eeding Aids g day ng week Day day

Antibiotic 14 4 to 10 World Walking Nation 9 Sep Know 1 Oct 14 4 to 10 awarenes Decembe Februa health month al your internatio Decem Februa s week r ry day blood numbers nal day of ber ry Christma Childre week week older Christ Childre s jumper n’s persons mas n’s day Mental jumper Mental Health day Health Week Week

Internati Men’s 10 Sep 10 Oct– onal health world world men’s week suicide mental day prevention health day day

20 Sep jeans 18 Oct

for genes wear it

YS day pink

A (breast D

cancer) S

S E

N 27 Sep E Macmillan

AR coffee

W morning A

2 30.10.15

Social Marketing Calendar 2019/20

E

S 2019 2020

CAMPAIGN Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar

FECOUR I

L

Start4Life Weekly email and syndicated content programme offering help and advise during pregnancy, birth and parenthood

10 Minute Shake Up

ell Community activation including Pick One Swap Campaign Nutrition Campaign TBC W TV, Radio, PR, Outdoor, g Change4Life Partnership with UKActive, Digital content, Social, Digital, Partnerships n Digital, Social, CRM, ti PR, CRM, Partnerships, Local Authorities and PR

ar Partnerships and Schools

t and Schools programme

S

Rise Above Rise Above for Schools Resilience building programme for 11-16s delivered online and via schools and planned new content on Mental Health

Every Mind Matters (Mental Health) TV, Radio, PR, VOD, Digital, Social and Partnerships

ell

W

Stoptober

g One You

n Digital, Search, PR vi

i and Partnerships L

Always on activity enabling people to find our tools and advice when needed - including search, digital products, responsive web & social content and monthly newsletter to over half a million adults

Cervical Keeping Antibiotics Be Clear On Cancer Screening Working TV, Digital, TV, Radio, PR, Outdoor, Social, OOH Partnerships

and Help Us Help You - Partnerships Stay Well This ell NHS Winter

W

g Help Us in

ge Help You A - Flu

Help Us Help Us Help You - Help You - Help Us Help You NHS 111 GP Access

Help Us Help You - Stay Well Health Care Workers Flu Vaccination Pharmacy

Private and confidential. Not for onward circulation. Subject to date changes Note: If you’d like to promote any other PHE campaigns locally, please browse through our Campaign Resource Centre to see what’s available