Cheshire and Merseyside ICP’s Children and Young People’s Transformation Programme
10 August 2023 Case study
Originally featured in our Impact Report 2022
Topics and programmes
Many children and young people across Cheshire and Merseyside are impacted severely by poor health outcomes and disproportionately negative health inequalities, particularly in vulnerable groups. There is a strong, national focus on children and young people and a clear central mandate from NHS England for every Integrated Care System to have an established children and young people’s transformation programme, as a priority deliverable of the NHS Long Term Plan.
The Beyond transformation programme was established in April 2021 under a clear mandate from the Cheshire and Merseyside Health Care Partnership in response to both regional priorities and those identified within the Long Term Plan. The programme is reflective of Place, Partnership, and Programme priorities and identified four key areas of focus for the programme during 2021–22. All four priority themes of the programme are focused on addressing health inequalities.
These priority areas are:
- Healthy weight and obesity
- Emotional and mental well-being
- Respiratory health
- Meeting the needs of young people with learning difficulties and/or autism
We at the Beyond programme commissioned the Point of Care Foundation to inform the development of our engagement strategy.
The task was to:
- Support the development of our engagement strategy.
- Develop an overarching framework for what ‘good’ looks like for engagement in the Beyond programme.
- Map existing engagement activity.
- Make recommendations for future engagement.
- Provide training and support to stakeholders in co-production methods.
The ultimate purpose of this work was to ensure the voices of children, young people, parents, and carers are heard and acted upon. Respondents were from across the region and included health service, local government, charity and third sector staff, and other organisations. They included staff responsible for strategic development of children and young people’s services, others who were on the ‘front line’ of service delivery, and people directly responsible for engagement and consultation with children and young people. These covered all the Beyond work stream topic areas, and all of the places across the Cheshire and Mersey ICP.
The result informed our participation strategy and provided us with a practical roadmap for the transformation programme. It helped us to develop a framework for meaningful engagement which draws on the expertise that already exists within participation groups and devise a set of principles for engagement for children, young people, and families.
To underpin this work, we’re committed to co-producing participation and engagement strategies with both young people and with parents and carers. High-quality engagement of children and young people and their families and carers is of paramount importance in the development and delivery of the programme. Co-production and insight are a core part of the delivery of the programme and will now be resourced and prioritized within our future work plan.