The move by NHS and wider public and third sector membership engagement experts MES is designed to help organisations rate performance and share best practice on membership engagement – now a key metric for organisations across the NHS.
The ultimate aim is to help the NHS be the best they can be at involving the public in the design and delivery of health services.
The ‘Engageometer’ could prove particularly useful to emerging models of care as seek to recruit members and involve the public in the design and delivery of local health services. It will give them access to expertise gained by more experienced organisations such as Foundation Trusts, who have been working with lay members for several years. The initiative centres on a voluntary survey, which can be undertaken by membership managers or other senior management.
It seeks to rate:
• Local community impact on organisational policy and strategy
• Members engagement with organisations’ communications
• Organisations’ effectiveness at attracting local people to events
• How effective organisations are at empowering local patients and communities
Results will be shared individually with organisations, and anonymised data will be collated to produce an overview that will reveal pockets of excellence and areas where best practice sharing could be beneficial. Nick Goodman said: “Simon Stevens made it clear in The Five Year Forward View that modern health services will succeed or fail on their ability to deliver improved health outcomes, which can’t be achieved without genuine buy-in from patients and local communities. So we’re calling on NHS organisations to join the Engageometer project to help benchmark this crucial area and ensure all health economies have access to the best engagement knowledge and toolkits.”
The Engagometer survey is now live and can be accessed at www.membra.co.uk/engageometer
Results will be shared at MES conference, Challenge 2020, Advancing Health and Engagement, on 6th July in London.