November 2023: Engage Britain has now merged with Demos. You can still find all our work from 2019-2023 here, but to get in touch or find out about our new ventures, go to https://demos.co.uk/

Ideas for Change
Coming up with health and care solutions

What’s on this page:

A quick recap: The story so far

Engage Britain supported 101 Community Conversations. Over 700 people shared what matters most to them about health and care.

We then brought together a People’s Panel. It involved 100 members of the public, representative of people living in England, Scotland and Wales.

The People’s Panel listened to the stories and viewpoints shared in the Community Conversations. And then prioritised the health and care issues to tackle first.

The Panel’s top priorities were:

These issues were then taken forward to the next stage: coming up with Ideas for Change.

Priority 1: Recruitment, training and retention of social care staff

Carer helping someone into bed
Developing practical, realistic solutions to recruit, train and retain social care staff.

Why did this issue come up?

The Panel prioritised social care staff issues because the sector is:

  • low paid
  • struggling to attract staff
  • struggling to keep staff
  • offering little career progression
  • being viewed as a low skill sector
  • being privately provided (by in large).

What we’re doing about it

Who is part of the Change group?

We set up a Social Care Change Group, tasked with developing practical solutions. It brought together many different social care perspectives, including people who:

  • Work on the frontline in social care 
  • Provide social care
  • Draw on social care 
  • Run and commission social care services 
  • Have expertise in social care workforce policy and practice. 

Before the Change Group started, we also hosted a few smaller gatherings called Ideas Groups.

Person on Zoom
The online Ideas Groups will feed into the Change Group’s thinking – and critique draft solutions.

These Ideas Groups were made up of people with specific experiences – those who draw on care, those who work on the frontline and care providers. Their first-hand knowledge helped inform the wider Change Group discussions.

They also fedback on the Change Group’s solutions to make sure the ideas don’t just work in theory, but have legs in the real world, ready to be tested in the project’s next phase.

Read more about this methodology

Priority 2: Poor communication in the health service

Man in waiting area
Poor NHS communication affects people. What can be done to improve things?

Why this issue came up

As Community Conversations and The People’s Panel showed, everybody has a story of feeling lost when trying to navigate the NHS.

People find the communications hard to understand. They don’t get the information they need. This can delay care and affect their mental health.

What we’re doing about it

We want to dig deeper into how poor communication affects people – and what might be done to improve things.

So we’re working with Imperial College Health Partners to pull together examples across the UK where things are working really well. To collect practical ideas that have been successful already and could be used more widely.

ICHP logo
We’ve partnered with ICHP to look at best practice examples of good communication in the health service.

These best practices will then be taken back to The People’s Panel. To find out: Do these ideas crack the issues that you and the public raised?

Taking the Panel’s feedback on board, solutions will carry on being shaped. With everything rooted in people’s real life experiences.

Priority 3: Staff shortages in the NHS

Nurse holds patient's hand

Recruiting, retaining and training the workforce is the biggest cause of the challenges facing the health and care system.

That was the British public’s message, loud and clear, from Engage Britain’s recent People’s Panel.

In the 2022 Autumn Statement, the government also acknowledged that the workforce needs attention. It has committed to implementing a plan looking at the need over the next 5, 10 and 15 years.

This marks an important pledge on a complex issue that’s been unaddressed for too long. But it’s even more important because – as our work shows – this is a high priority for people across the country.

That’s why Engage Britain and The King’s Fund commissioned Bill Morgan, a former conservative special adviser, to write an independent report on the issue.

Not to provide ‘the solution’. But to shine a spotlight on where the debate often gets stuck.

This new report explores how politics interplays with workforce policy. And asks: does it have to be this way?

Read the report >

What happens after Ideas for Change?

Party conference speaker
We’ll be taking the ideas for change to politicians

Next, we’ll put the British public’s ideas in front of politicians. Then we can make the case for why these issues should be an immediate focus. And share people’s practical solutions for what can be done.

Carer holding hand

Find out the practical steps – developed by people who work in care and draw on care – to recruit, train and keep more staff… read more

People's Panel screenshot

Engage Britain has brought together the public, patients and staff to understand their experiences and views of the NHS and care… read more

People brainstorming ideas

Take a look at these diary updates, soundbites and quotes, straight from the people in the room… find out more

Triage

Poor communication between the NHS and patients is causing widespread harm and wasting precious resources… read more