The NHS 14-week new hospital consultation that took place earlier this year interacted with more than 98,000 people and has been awarded ‘best practice’.
The consultation looked at how £700-£900 million should be invested to modernise our hospitals and improve the quality and sustainability of health services in Hampshire for the future.
As part of the consultation, NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight put forward three proposed options which our local communities, NHS staff and stakeholders were encouraged to give their views on1. In total over 98,000 people interacted with the consultation through various routes such as by attending one of our listening events, engaging with social media posts and attending community groups as well as by responding directly to the questionnaire. An activity report outlining all the activity during the public consultation is published today and available here.
Following an assessment by the Consultation Institute, under its Consultation Quality Assurance Scheme, the public consultation has fully met the requirements for ‘best practice’. The highest award that can be made.
NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight also engaged Opinion Research Services (ORS), an independent research company, to analyse all the responses to the consultation and provide a comprehensive picture of the views of those who responded. This has now been collated in an independent consultation report which has also been published today.
This report:
- considers feedback from each element of the consultation
- provides a comprehensive and detailed account of views
- identifies where strength of feeling may be particularly intense
- fulfils an obligation to highlight concerns and contrary views (‘Gunning Principles’ for a fair consultation).
However, the report, does not make a case for any of the proposals or make any recommendations as to how decision makers should use the reported results.
Caroline Morison, Chief Strategy Officer at NHS Hampshire & Isle of Wight said: “We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who took the time to share their views during the consultation period.
“We are pleased that the consultation reached so many people in our local communities and that the consultation has been awarded ‘best practice’. We are now continuing to work with our local partners as we move towards making a decision regarding this multi-million-pound programme which looks to improve local health provision for so many people in Hampshire.”
The next steps
The content of the independent consultation report will now be considered by the Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 22 July. The committee is made up of councillors from the local councils whose communities will be impacted by the proposed changes. They meet to look at the NHS’s proposals and the analysis of the consultation in the independent report. They will then produce key points for the NHS to consider and respond to.
The NHS will then comprehensively consider the feedback from the Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee alongside the consultation report.
The NHS will formally respond to the Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee in the summer setting out the process for considering the points that they have raised. This will help in the development of the final proposal and the Decision-Making Business Case is expected to be published later this year.
Further information about the Hampshire Together programme, the reports and next steps can be found on the Hampshire Together website.