Engaging young people in NHS service delivery and development : A scoping review of the evidence

Commissioned by the NHS England, alongside a survey and interviews with NHS staff, this review found that while there is widespread support for youth participation in the development and delivery of healthcare services, it is not very clear what is actually being undertaken in practice within the NHS, or what the evidence is for good practice. We do have a fairly extensive literature on models of participation more generally that can be usefully applied to this context, and a developing sense of the categories of engagement that are being employed in developing and monitoring health services for young people. However, this scoping review concluded that, in terms of good practice and what works, there is much less evidence available, and we know very little about how engagement ‘works’ for the young people involved. What does exist in the research literature suggests that much of what is going on is piecemeal, short lived, or lacking clear aims and outcomes. While there may be a fair amount of consulting and informing taking place, truly empowering models of participation are rarely documented. There is clearly a need for more evidencing, both in terms of a description of what is undertaken, but also analysis of impact. Finding ways to improve the evidence base is now critical if participation is going to have the transformative impact on the system that it has the potential to achieve

Engaging young people in NHS service delivery and development : Recommendations from a scoping review and research project

Young people need to be involved at all levels of our healthcare system, from shaping the care they are receiving at the front line right up to co-designing and inputting to strategic change. What we mean by health services in this context is any NHS funded or branded service that manages the health and wellbeing of young people (10-25 year olds), ranging from primary care, through secondary and tertiary services, and including community services, mental health services, and allied health professional services such as physiotherapy and occupational health. NHS England is committed to working in partnership with young people but this requires planning, resources and guidance. There is high level policy support for this, and anecdotal accounts of good work going on in practice on the ground. However, despite high levels of commitment to working together with young people and representing their voice in policy and planning, our understanding of what is actually happening on the ground within the system is somewhat lacking. NHSE’s children and young peoples’ transformation team commissioned the authors to map the territory and provide an understanding of what we do and do not know about best practice in this area. As a result of an evidence scope and our own research into what is happening in the system, we concluded that very limited progress had been made in developing this workstream in recent years. Echoing other reports dating back two decades, our conclusions were that we need better accounts of what is going on, more resources dedicated to these kinds of activities, and some serious investment in evaluating impact. These conclusions do not need repeating and provide us with nothing new. What we need now is action to improve the evidence base. This document, linked to reports on the associated research and scoping review lists recommendations for taking forward work in this area

Engaging young people in NHS service delivery and development : Results from a sector survey and interviews

Despite considerable and growing support for public and patient participation with young people in the development and delivery of health services, what is actually being done in practice across the country is not widely known or shared. In order to present an overview of current practice we undertook a scoping exercise, including a survey and interviews. The overall picture was positive, in that there is clear ambition and commitment to broadening the participation of young people in health services design and delivery, and many examples of work ongoing. There is consensus on the essential building blocks, and the challenges and barriers. However, the work is sketchy, patchy, and happening in silos. The extent to which individual attempts are successful, enduring and meaningful varies hugely and many fail for lack of resources and staff capacity or skills. The work is often under recognised and under resourced. There is clearly room for guidance across the health system to help people decide what kind of participation work is feasible and appropriate for them, and to provide some pointers to good practice