Our people and communities come from many different backgrounds, and we see this as a real strength. To find out more about the population of Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin please visit Equality, Diversity and Inclusion - NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin.

We are fully committed to involving patients, the public, partners and key stakeholders in the development of services and ensuring they are at the heart of everything we do. 

We understand working in partnership is key to empowering patients to have more choice and control over their own health. 

Through these partnerships, we can better understand the health needs of our population, resulting in improved health outcomes. 

The Health and Care Act 2022 mobilised partners within Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) to work together to improve physical and mental health outcomes, ensuring they are informed by the needs, experiences and aspirations of the people and communities they serve. 

In line with section 14Z45 of the NHS Act 2006 and amended by the Health and Care Act 2022, we involve the people and communities in: 

• The planning of commissioned services. 
•  The development of proposals for changes in commissioning arrangements.  
• The decisions which would have an impact on services.  

By listening to local people and those who represent them, we can improve the decisions we make and ensure we are considering the health needs of our residents.  

We are continuously improving and developing the ways we can involve people and communities. It is important to us that the public sees how their feedback has helped to shape local services and how much we value all feedback and engagement.  

The way we do this is set out in our principles described in our People and Communities Strategy. These principles explain how we work with people and communities. 

Our principles have been developed and shaped from the rich conversations that took place to help inform our Involving People and Communities Strategy: 

Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Integrated Care Partnership  

The Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) operates as a statutory committee. It is made up of partners from across the local area, including voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations, Healthwatch and independent healthcare providers, as well as representatives from our organisation.  

One of the key roles of the partnership is to assess the health, public health and social care needs of the area it serves, and to produce an Integrated Care Strategy to address them. This must be informed by the Health and Wellbeing Boards’ Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNA) of the population and the local joint health and wellbeing strategies. The ICP is required to use these assessments but also carry out further research where needed, to build a full understanding of the local population’s health and care needs and engage with partners and people and/or their representatives, especially those experiencing the greatest health inequalities.  

This, in turn, directs our five-year Joint Forward Plan.  

NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Board  

Our Board is responsible for agreeing and overseeing a five-year plan to deliver the ICP’s Integrated Care Strategy, and for allocating and accounting for NHS resources.  

We and our partner trusts must involve people and communities, especially those experiencing the greatest health inequalities, and the health and wellbeing boards in preparing or revising the plan.  

Place-based partnerships  

The two Health and Wellbeing Boards (Shropshire, and Telford and Wrekin) agree a health and wellbeing strategy for each place.  

These place-based strategies are based on what is most important to local people.  

Most of the decisions about spending and services will be made by committees in our local place-based partnerships.  

Membership includes representation from local people, Healthwatch and the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector as key partners.  

Health Overview and Scrutiny Committees  

Health Overview and Scrutiny Committees (HOSCs) are local authority committees with the power to review and scrutinise health and care services.  

The aim of HOSCs is to ensure that decision-making processes are transparent, accountable and inclusive.  

All their work is underpinned by the following values and behaviours: 

• To provide a constructive 'critical friend' challenge. 
• To amplify the voices and concerns of the public. 
• To drive improvement in public services.  

We have good working relationships with local and joint HOSCs and provide regular updates both in written format and by attending meetings. We take their role of ‘critical friend’ very seriously and recognise them as a vital part of our approach and how we work.  

Equality and Involvement Committee  

Our Equality and Involvement Committee includes members of the public, Healthwatch and the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector.  

It acts as a ‘critical friend’ to review and advise on Integrated Impact Assessments for proposed service changes and plans to involve people and communities, with a particular focus on ensuring we are addressing and reducing inequalities.  

This committee is chaired by a non-executive director member of the NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Board. The committee reports to the Strategic Commissioning and Productivity Committee. 

To find out more go to Equality and Involvement Committee - NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin 

We recognise the differences within our communities, including differences in health needs, access to services (both digital and in-person), and preferred ways of getting involved. 

All our commissioning and involvement activities are built on a solid understanding of our population, service users, their experiences and the people who support them.  

• • We use Integrated Impact Assessments to understand who might be affected by service changes or proposals, so we can plan how to engage with them. 
  • When planning any engagement activities, we review the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment data and our own insight so that the involvement activities are relevant and effective.  
  • We draw on our large stakeholder database to connect with our different populations e.g. through existing groups, networks and organisations. 
  • We use established opportunities to engage and communicate, and work to identify the best partner with the strongest relationship to lead the conversation. 
  • We’ve set up a system network to coordinate involvement opportunities, share best practices and manage relationships with local people and communities. 
  • Our insight library holds data and information from all partners. It’s available to everyone in the ICS, so partners can share their findings and help shape future activities. 

In Early 2025, we engaged with our People's Network as a part of our work to support Confidentiality Advisory Groups, to understand local people's views on how we use their personal data, and to what extent people understood the impact it can have on local health and care services.  We heard from 84 members, and learned that although awareness is high and that we have strong support for using personal health and care data across a range of use cases, individuals are keen to hear more about how and when we use their data, and would prefer greater visibility of its application and impact.

We involve people and communities in a number of ways, including:

• • Sharing information about proposed changes.
  • Asking for people's views.
  • Listening to people to understand the issues.
  • Incorporating their ideas.
  • Working with people to design solutions.

This graphic shows the different ways we work with people and communities.

As part of an Integrated Care System (a group of local organisations working together to improve health and care), our main goal is to understand and address the health and care needs in our community. The organisations that are part of our system are working together and sharing their skills, expertise and support to find solutions.  

Working with our communities, as well as our partners, is vital if we want to make a positive and long-lasting difference to the lives of people living and working in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin. Collecting feedback from people about their care experiences, ideas for improvement and individual needs is key to addressing health gaps (differences in health between different groups of people) and helping people live healthier lives for longer. 

Our voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) partners are vital in this work of improving population health, as is the use of population health management (PHM) to better understand local needs.  

PHM is a method used to understand current health and care needs and predict what people will need in the future. It looks at past and present data to see what causes poor health in different groups of people. 

In 2023, we started the Big Health and Wellbeing Conversation. We asked people in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin how health and care services could be improved. 

The Big Health and Wellbeing Conversation was set up to find out what local people thought was affecting their health and wellbeing, and what changes they thought would make the biggest difference to their experience of local health and care services. 

People told us these five things mattered most to them: 

• Making communication better between patients and services. 
• Making it easier to get appointments, including more virtual options. 
• Helping people know what services are available to support healthy living. 
• Supporting people who struggle with using digital services. 
• Learning from people’s experiences with poor-quality care and use that to improve. 

The ideas and feedback we gathered has helped shape our Joint Forward Plan, and will continue to help us plan better services. 

Community engagement

Our community engagement team spoke to 1,857 people between August 2024 and March 2025, seeking their views and feedback on a range of issues.

Summary of people's demographics (August 2024 to March 2025 (prior to August no demographic data was collected for general engagements)):

Whilst the majority of people we spoke to were between 40  and 80 years old, community and school events allowed us to speak with a significant number of young people and young parents/carers.

At least 69% of all engagements were with, or with those representing, people from economically deprived communities and socially excluded groups.

A number of engagement activities targeted people with protected characteristics to ensure diverse representation and understand issues related to their specific health needs. The number of engagement activities against each protected characteristic are set out below:

• Age - 65*
• Disability - 69*
• Gender Reassignment - 1*
• Marriage & Civil Partnership - 34*
• Pregnancy & Maternity - 17*
• Race - 34*
• Religion - 22*
• Sex - 5*
• Sexual Orientation - 7*

*Some groups had multiple protected characteristics.

Programme specific engagement

We undertook engagement activities to hear people’s views on specific issues, such as: 

• Change NHS 
• General Practice Out of Hours Service 
• Children and Young People's Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health Services 
• Special Educational Needs and Disability Support 
• Cancer Services 
• Patient Data 
• Advance Care Planning 
• Diabetes Services 

Assuring public engagement in our plans

Our Equality and Involvement Committee (EIC) is a formal committee of NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin (NHS STW), made up of members of the public and system partners, providing assurance to the Board in relation to our Integrated Impact Assessments and engagement plans. To read more about Our Integrated Impact Assessments go to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion - NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin.

Work considered by the EIC in 2024/25 included:

• Diabetes Transformation Programme - April 2025
• Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service - April 2025
• The EDS2 Domain 1 self-assessment - March 2025
• Diabetes Transformation Programme - February 2025
• Community Pharmacy Antiviral Service - February 2025
• Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service - January 2025
• Cancer - December 2024
• The GP Out Of Hours Service Procurement Programme - November 2024
• The GP Out Of Hours Service Procurement Programme - October 2024
• Teledermatology - October 2024
• The GP Out Of Hours Service Procurement Programme - September 2024
• Targeted Lung Health Check Programme - July 2024
• The Hospitals Transformation Programme - April 2024

For more information visit Equality and Involvement Committee - NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin

Ad hoc engagement

When engaging with our communities about various health programmes, we sometimes discover unrelated healthcare issues. Our engagement team will raise these issues with patient services and relevant colleagues for awareness and to explore existing and potential solutions. Here are some examples of recent findings:

1. Issue: Difficulties with the translation of information and interpreter availability for appointments. Solution: Most of our medical practices now have handheld devices called Vasco V4 Translator. 
2. Issue: Difficulties registering with a GP medical practice. Solution: For those looking to register with a GP practice visiting Find a GP - NHS.

We have over 400 members in our People’s Network, an online group of residents from Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin who regularly share their views on health and care services. 

We continually assess the demographic breakdown of our network to ensure that the membership is representative of the population that we serve, both geographically across our two local authority areas but also considered against the nine protected characteristics.

We currently have:

• 56% of our membership living in Shropshire, and 35% in Telford and Wrekin
• 85% of members telling us they are White: British.  We have members from a wide range of ethnicities, and actively engage to further broaden this segment.
• Our membership is predominantly aged 50+ (63%), however we have an ongoing focus to recruit younger people.
• Around half of our membership have a disability, and a third are a carer.  14% of members are either current or former members of the armed forces.

To find out more about the Network go to How you can get involved​ - NHS Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin