The Care Forum (TCF) and Healthwatch in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire are leading a one-month engagement project to support the new Bristol NHS Foundation Trust.
The focus is ensuring that the voices of people who are often least heard by healthcare services are included in the Trust’s future planning.
The work involves:
- Identifying and prioritising communities that are seldom heard, socially excluded, or experience barriers to accessing healthcare.
- Conducting direct qualitative engagement through interviews, outreach visits and attendance at existing community groups and services.
- Working with VCSE organisations, including lived experience-led groups, to gather insight from the communities they support.
- Advising the Trust on the most effective approaches, locations and partners for reaching these communities.
- Reviewing and refining engagement questions to ensure they are accessible and relevant to the target groups.
Priority groups
The engagement focuses particularly on Inclusion Health and other marginalised communities to ensure their voices are included in the Trust’s planning.
What the engagement will explore
The project seeks to understand:
- People’s experiences of hospital staff, services and sites.
- What matters most to patients and communities.
- Experiences of accessing healthcare today.
- How people would like healthcare to be delivered in future.
- Expectations of the Trust and its role within local communities.
Outputs
The main output will be a report providing:
- Community perceptions of the Trust, its staff and values.
- Experiences of accessing hospital services.
- Views on future healthcare delivery.
- Recommendations and key themes about what patients and communities want from the Trust.
Short executive summary
Healthwatch and The Care Forum are supporting Bristol NHS Foundation Trust by leading targeted engagement with least-heard and Inclusion Health communities.
Through direct outreach and collaboration with VCSE organisations, the project will gather insights into people’s experiences of healthcare, what matters most to local communities, and how services should be designed in the future.
The findings will inform the Trust’s organisational values, behaviours and five-year clinical strategy, ensuring that the perspectives of communities furthest from services are reflected in future decision-making.