Health and Social Care NI (HSCNI) Involvement and Consultation Scheme

Overview

Involvement of and consultation with service users & carers is critical in the commissioning, development, design and delivery of Health & Social Care (HSC) Services. To comply with our statutory duties in regards to Involvement and Consultation, as set out in the Health and social Care Reform Act (NI) 2009, all HSC organisations, to which the legislation applies, must have a Consultation Scheme in place, which sets out how they meet their statutory responsibilities in this field. 

Working together through the Regional HSC Personal & Public Involvement (PPI) Forum, service users, carers, experts and advocates in the fields of Involvement and Consultation and other HSC partners, a number of HSC organisations have collaborated on the development of a common, generic template, in order to update our respective Schemes. Each updated Scheme, uses the same core template as its basis, but each will differ in terms of how their respective organisation has set out what its structure and arrangements are for addressing each component of the Scheme.  In adopting this approach, our new Schemes, we believe, will encourage a raising of standards and can aid us to deliver an improved consistency of approach to the active and meaningful involvement of service users, carers, and effective partnership working with our Community & Voluntary sector partners and the wider public.

These new Involvement & Consultation Schemes, address both our commitment to our Statutory Duty to involvement and Consultation and support our wider policy obligations in respect of PPI.  The  PHA, NIAS, BHSCT, NHSCT, SHSCT, SEHSCT and WHSCT have come together to undertake a consultation on our respective updated Schemes.

Through this collaborative consultation process, you have the opportunity to consider and comment on any, or all of the schemes individually. If you click on the Involvement and Consultation Scheme that is of most interest to you and to which you would like to comment on, you will be redirected to a series of questions for that Scheme. This will also enable us to ensure that we are able to direct your feedback to the organisation upon whose Scheme you have commented on. 

We thank you in advance for taking the time to give us your feedback on the Involvement and Consultation Scheme and look forward to your comments.

All related consultation documents can be viewed or downloaded below