 
Your Health Your Care Your Say
Method(s) Used
Name of person who posted the project:Karin Gavelin (Involve)
Location of project:England
Date when the project started:2005
Date when the project ended/project ongoing:2006
Background to project:YHYCYS was one of two engagement exercises carried out by the Department of Health in 2005, alongside the “Independence, Wellbeing and Choice”, on adult social care. The outcomes from these two exercises would go on to form the White Paper Our health, our care, our say: a new direction for community services.Opinion Leader Research (OLR) was commissioned to undertake one of the largest research-based listening exercises ever to occur in England. The YHYCYS White Paper listening exercise took place between 14th September and 4th November 2005. Purpose of project:The aim of YHYCYS was to ensure that the public, especially “seldom heard” groups, had an active involvement in deliberative debates on contentious issues. This included the issue of “trading off “public investment in different types of health and social care services. The listening exercise was also intended to create a high public profile in order to encourage wide involvement of the public and of stakeholders.Beneath the overall aim of the exercise sat three stated objectives including a commitment to public engagement in the policy making process:
The official evaluation of the YHYCYS process suggests an additional objective for the whole exercise: “it was felt it would make some contribution to enhancing trust in Government, by reinvigorating public debate, and lead to better public service provision, by addressing the needs and concerns of service users and providers” . The process as a whole was therefore seen as a way of setting policy direction and also improving policy implementation by enabling those charged with delivery to better understand the public’s priorities. Project activities:Activities included:
The local, regional and national participants were all given background information and evidence to inform their discussions. This included policy options for improvement and trade offs that needed to be considered. Polling on key questions took place throughout the process. Both the four regional events and the national events involved randomly selected participants from each region or from the country as a whole. The national summit focused on particular issues that had arisen from the questionnaire responses and from earlier events. Alongside the input from the general public outlined above there were also three other activities involved in the overall process: A Citizens Advisory Panel made up of ten demographically representative members of the public; a set of five policy Task Forces involving approximately sixty stakeholder organisations and ad hoc contributions from eighty six other stakeholders; and a Phonebus Survey which was carried out independently by Taylor Nelson before and after the national summit in order to evaluate public awareness of the debate. Project results:The feedback from participants was largely positive but at times sceptical. People seemed to think that similar events in the future were a good idea, and that the events had been run very well. They were, however, doubtful about the degree of real influence that these kind of events would have over government decision making. There was a desire for a clear feedback loop to be established. In terms of policy outcomes, participants stressed a concern to have locally provided healthcare services and to be involved in decisions about their future. The White Paper was published in January 2006. Proposals included some ideas taken almost directly from the outcomes of the YHYCYS exercise:
Contact details:http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4138622
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