Hampshire, Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight is diverse with a range of different communities, not just based on where they live, with varying experiences of services and different health outcomes.

We know that working together with our communities, we can tackle a range of issues to improve health outcomes and reduce inequalities.

Community Involvement Highlights, Looking at our community involvement activities with our local communities across Hampshire and Isle of Wight between April and June 2023. Please download version at the bottom of the page.

                          

We have a strong history of engagement, with examples of best practice across the organisations and different area, but want to use the opportunity coming together as a system gives us to build on this. To help us do this we have worked with a range of people - members of the public, NHS staff, the voluntary sector, Healhwatch and local authorities, to co-design a Community Involvement Approach.

The ambition for our community involvement is that it will enable people who use services to have equal access to high quality health and care opportunities. This is is supported by four principles:

  1. Based on trust and relationships
  2. Build on best practice
  3. Inclusive of diverse communities
  4. A collective responsibility.

We have worked together to co-design different elements of the approach which sets out how we will:

  • Share ownership with our local communities
  • Support staff and local communities to undertake involvement activities and be involved
  • Reach our seldom heard communities and tackle the barriers to their involvement
  • Develop our involvement methods to be more inclusive and innovative
  • Share insight and feedback we have from across the Integrated Care System and develop actionable insight
  • Evaluate our work so we can clearly demonstrate the impact of community involvement and continually review and develop our approach
  • Meet our legal duties.

You can read our full Community Involvement Approach, which we have refreshed for 2023/24. We also have a brief summary which you can read here.

We produce quarterly community involvement reports, and a one-page summary, which include:

  • Highlights of community involvement undertaken, with details of what we have heard and what we have done or recommend needs to happen
  • A Focus On a particular community involvement project
  • Details of the discussions at the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Solutions Group and the Community Engagement Groups
  • An update on how we are embedding our co-designed Community Involvement Approach
  • Details of how we are evaluating and learning from our work
  • Details of planned future engagement work

These are discussed at the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Solutions Group and our Board.

We also provide updates on invidual programmes of workwork, including how local communities have been involved and how their views, feedback and involvement have been used, on Your Voice, Your Health.

There are many opportunities available for you to influence local healthcare services. These opportunities include:

  • Visiting Your Voice, Your Health to get involved in local projects relating to health and wellbeing
  • Joining Hampshire and Isle of Wight Voices (our Citizen's Panel).
  • Joining your GP practice’s Patient Participation Group by contacting your practice 
  • Attending our Board meetings
  • Contacting your local Healthwatch – the independent national champion for people who use health and social care services. Local Healthwatch branches operate on the Isle of Wight, in Southampton, across Hampshire and in Portsmouth. 
  • Follow our social media channels 
  • Sharing a comment or compliment, raising a concern or complaint, by contacting our Patient Experience team 

It is essential that residents, patients and staff have an opportunity to shape plans and that those working on transformation programmes have an understanding of what is important to local people.

There are a number of ways in which we already engage people via our individual health and care organisations and with support from Involving People and Healthwatch. To complement this work, we have developed Hampshire and Isle of Wight Voices. This is our online citizens’ panel.

Hampshire and Isle of Wight Voices has over 2,000 members from across Hampshire, Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.

Our members help us to gather a diverse range of views from our community. This is vital to planning and improving health and care as we will better  understand your experiences and needs. . Panel members are asked to contribute their views and experiences through regular surveys. We also share other ways for them to get involved through for example, taking part in discussions in focus groups or workshops and by attending other relevant events.

How does it work?

We work with system leaders, staff teams and voluntary sector organisations to establish the priority areas that would be most helpful to gain the views of the panel members. We share regular surveys. Currently these are roughly once per month. Some opportunities will be targeted to members who have expressed an interest in a specific topic. Other opportunities will be more general and sent to all members.


Survey findings are shared with panel members and published online. They are also shared with relevant teams across the system to help them to develop their plans to improve services. From time to time, members may also be contacted and given the opportunity to take part in other engagement opportunities such as local discussions, forums or focus groups.


All participation is voluntary, and people can opt out at any time by emailing us at hiowicb-hsi.hiowvoices@nhs.net. We hope that panel members choose to take part in most of the opportunities, and as a minimum, at least once in every three-month period.

Privacy and data sharing

When publishing the results of the surveys we will always anonymise responses and ensure that individuals cannot be identified.

All of the survey responses and participant data are held securely by Civica and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care Board, on behalf of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Integrated Care System.

Our Fair Processing Notice is available here.

Becoming a member

In order to contribute we ask that you are 16 years old or over and live in the area covered by Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICS. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Voices is designed to be broadly representative of the local population so it will not always be possible to accept applications.

PPG meeting image.jpegWhat is a PPG?

A Patient Participation Group (PPG) is a group of people who are patients of the surgery and want to help it work as well as it can for patients, doctors and staff. They work to improve the overall experience of the patient population registered at that practice. The NHS requires every practice to have a PPG

Why should I join a PPG?

There are a number of reasons to join a PPG including:

  • You have been to the surgery as a patient, parent, carer or friend
  • Your experiences matter and you can bring different ideas to the surgery to help them treat patients better or to improve what they do in some way
  • You will also gain a better understanding of the NHS, and gather feedback from other patients

Who sits on a PPG?

PPGs are usually made up of a group of volunteer patients and the practice manager. There is often a GP from the practice too.

What do PPGs do?

PPGs should meet on a regular basis to discuss the services on offer. They look at how improvements can be made for the benefit of patients and the practice. Depending on the skills, availability, and motivation of those involved, what you can do in your PPG can vary.

For example, PPGs undertake an annual patient survey to improve ways of working and relationships between patients and the practice.

In practice, PPGs can play a number of roles, including:

  • Advising the practice on the patient perspective
  • Organising health promotion events
  • Communicating with the wider patient body
  • Running volunteer services and support groups to meet local needs
  • Carrying out research into the views of those who use the practice (and their carers)
  • Influencing the practice or the wider NHS to improve commissioning
  • Fundraising to improve the services provided by the practice

How do I join my local PPG?

To find out more, get in touch with your GP surgery. Many provide details of how to join the PPG on their website.

Useful links

Our approach is also underpinned by the ten principles for how Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) work with people and communities which have been developed nationally:

  1. Put the voices of people and communities at the centre of decision-making and governance, at every level of the ICS
  2. Start engagement early when developing plans and feedback to people and communities how their engagement has influenced activities and decisions
  3. Understand your community’s needs, experience and aspiration for health and care, using engagement to find out if change is having the desired effect
  4. Build relationships with excluded groups, especially those affected by inequalities
  5. Work with Healthwatch and the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector as key partners
  6. Provide clear and accessible public information about vision, plans and progress, to build understanding and trust
  7. Use community development approaches that empower people and communities, making connections to social action
  8. Use co-production, insight and engagement to achieve accountable health and care services
  9. Co-produce and redesign services and tackle system priorities in partnership with people and communities
  10. Learn from what works and build on the assets of all ICS partners – networks, relationships, activity in local places.

We work hard to make sure that all of our information is accessible to as wide a range of people as possible. You can read our full accessibility statement here.

If you need information on this website in a different format, like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

Our Quarterly Involvement Reports 

You might also be interested in...

Get involved

Your health

Contact us