Addressing health inequalities through engagement with people and communities

Summary

Clarify the scope of the engagement to set realistic expectations and focus on achievable goals with communities.

Link to health inequalities

A clear scope helps set realistic expectations, focuses energies on achievable goals, builds trust and fosters transparency with people and communities experiencing health and care inequalities. This is particularly important when working with people and communities that have felt let down or disillusioned by past processes.

Activities, skills and resources

Emerging

• Develop a clear internal understanding of what is in and out of scope for projects or workstreams (and why).
• Identify which decisions are open for discussion with communities.
• Create a simple decision-making framework to clarify how scope decisions are made and who has authority.

Developing

• Clearly explain to communities what is in and out of scope and the reasoning behind these decisions.
• Include information on decisions that have already been made (and why).

Maturing

• Make binding commitments to revisit decisions if communities present compelling cases.
• Develop clear criteria for when and how scope decisions can be revisited, ensuring consistency and transparency.
• Provide timely feedback on the outcomes of any revisited decisions.

Thriving

• Collaboratively establish the scope with communities from the outset.
• Develop robust processes to communicate how the scope reflects both ICS priorities and community needs.
• Regularly review and co-adapt scope boundaries with communities to ensure they remain relevant and responsive.