Planning with People: Community engagement and participation guidance - service user questionnaire

The purpose of this review as a whole was to ensure that 'Planning with People: Community engagement and participation guidance' supports a human rights-based approach and is aligned to one of the key improvement recommendations of the Independent Review of Adult Social Care in Scotland – to listen to the views of people who use services and actively involve them throughout the process of planning care delivery.

This survey was designed to gather service user views on public engagement as it relates to health and social care service design or change.

The ‘service user’ survey was one of three consultations that was undertaken in 2022, into the wider review of 'Planning with People: Community engagement and participation guidance'.

Of those 114 participants who took part, just over half of respondents (51%) said ‘yes’, they were aware that people across Scotland have a right to get involved in the design and delivery of new health or social care services and to comment on changes to existing services, beyond giving feedback through the Citizen’s Space 'Service User' Survey.

Over the last three years, 28% have been asked to give feedback or opinion on service design or change in local health or social care. The services that respondents were asked to provide feedback or opinion on included GP services, health strategies, and support and care services.

The most common form of engagement was by taking part in a discussion group or focus group online (52%).

Respondents who had been involved in engagement were asked how they would rate their experience in this engagement. 41% said that their experience was neither positive nor negative, 31% said it was positive or very positive, and 28% said that their experience was negative or very negative.

The most important aspect of being involved in the design of new health or social care services or changes to existing services was ‘Knowing that your feedback could lead to changes and inform decision-making’ (70%), followed by ‘Being able to improve local services’ (68%), and ‘Having a say on health and social care issues that matter to you’ (65%).

We have taken account of the responses received to inform the updated Planning with People guidance, which has now been published.

We continue to develop existing strategies for public engagement to encourage all communities to participate in health and social care service design, including:

• raising awareness of the public’s right to get involved in the design and delivery of new health and social care services
• informing the public about proposed changes to health and social care services throughout an engagement process, and
• providing feedback on the results and/or impact of the engagement to those who took part.

A full analysis report to this consultation can be requested by email to pwp@gov.scot or by post:

Planning with People

Participation Team

Healthcare Quality and Improvement Directorate

Scottish Government

St Andrew's House, Regent Road, Edinburgh, EH1 3DG