By Sinéad Woods, Senior Public Health Officer, National Screening Service
We’ve published a new framework which sets out a clear purpose and process for consistent stakeholder engagement to improve the quality and effectiveness of the services we provide.
Engagement and partnership is a priority for us in our 5-year strategy, Choose Screening – Together we can make a difference. We’re committed to being an open, trusted and listening organisation. We want to learn from, understand and include our stakeholders in the planning, delivery and evaluation of our screening services.
The framework was co-developed with our stakeholders.
How we did it
Two surveys were circulated in 2022 to our stakeholders, including our staff. The surveys aimed to learn from previous engagements, understand stakeholder needs and identify areas for improvement. 314 stakeholders responded to the surveys with a particularly high response rate from our service providers – sample-takers and GPs. Feedback from the surveys highlighted that stakeholders engage with us to access the most-up-to-date information. This enables them to continue to provide a quality service and/or represent the views of the people they serve.
We held a workshop to co-develop the framework using the survey results. Attendees included representatives from the Department of Health, HSE departments, advocacy groups, academia, patient and public representatives, service providers and our staff. We agreed a purpose and developed a set of principles that will guide and drive engagement with our stakeholders.
What we want to achieve
We want to build trust and confidence in our services and develop a mutual understanding with our stakeholders so that we can work together to develop a compassionate service that delivers positive participant experiences. We’re committed to transparent decision-making that is informed by stakeholder insights.
Next steps
Our stakeholders identified priority outcomes to inform our actions and processes for engagement. We’ve developed an action plan to achieve these with five key objectives:
- Inform and influence: we will continue to develop our communication updates.
- Listen and learn: we will be an open, attentive, reflective and learning service.
- Deliver a quality service: we will work with our stakeholders to achieve measurable service improvements.
- Build systems and partnerships: we will build sustainable partnerships across our health service and internationally.
- Foster good culture and governance: engagement is an integral part of working within our governance structures.
We look forward to engaging with our stakeholders to realise these objectives. Working together we can improve the patient experience, reach more people, and support them to make informed choices about screening.