In Kent and Medway, we are reviewing how we involve local people and communities in health and care planning. We want to make sure our strategy reflects what matters to you and that it takes account of changes to the NHS.
NHS Kent and Medway works to improve health and health care for the people of Kent and Medway. We plan and buy health care services for two million local residents.
Health and care across the country is undergoing considerable change and in Kent and Medway we are also facing significant financial pressures. We know that if we want to improve the health and wellbeing of local people and if we want to make services fit for the future we need to work together with local communities.
To support this, we needed to plan how to involve people and communities over the next five years and the approaches.
What we did
During the engagement period from October 2025 to February 2026, we went through past engagement reports from the last three years and developed some engagement principles.
Building on these, we asked for feedback from people, ICB staff, NHS and local authority staff, Healthwatch and VCSEF organisations. We carried out:
From across all these groups of people we engaged with over 120 people.
What you told us
The themes we heard reflect many of the principles we found from analysing engagement feedback from over the last three years which were:
- Build better relationships with partners across the Kent and Medway system - including VCFSE
- Get better at listening to communities
- Show how we have listened to and learned from local people, people who use services and frontline staff
In addition to the principles, we heard the following:
What next
From the feedback, an involving people and communities plan has been drafted. This is a work in progress to align it with our NHS Five Year Plan and the ongoing ICB changes.
The involving people and communities plan will be available from Summer 2026.