Before You Start

Before you begin a programme of participation, it is important to consider the following points.

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Selecting a suitable tool for your purposes

The tools you select will depend on whether your aim is to involve people in shaping local services or as partners in decisions about their own treatment and care.

In line with the National Standards for Community Engagement, it should be agreed with local people how they want to be involved and the approaches to be used. You may need to use more than one tool when planning participation around a topic. If you need to reach several communities of interest, or involve people in very different situations, it is better to use two or three tools that are each right for that group of people, than to use one compromise method.

See the list of tools for more information

Ethical issues

Handling the ethical issues of participation and/or research work appropriately is very important. More information can be found in the Design Checklist for ethical issues.

Listening to 'seldom heard groups' and supporting people with additional needs

In a mutual NHS all participation activity needs to consider how to embed the involvement of equalities groups and be responsive to peoples’ needs, taking account of age, gender, disability, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and geographic location.

The Equality Act became law in 2010 and will come into force in Scotland in 2011. The current duty requires boards to have equality schemes with regard to disability, gender and race, but from 2011 it is proposed that they will require schemes that cover age, gender reassignment, religion and belief, and sexual orientation. Further information is available from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

When planning to involve 'seldom heard groups', information about the population in each NHS Board area should be sought from their lead officer for Equality, Diversity and Human Rights. An Equality Impact Assessment will help to identify the groups that may have been overlooked in the past. There are many useful participation resources which can help you.

Health and safety

Every organisation has a Health and Safety Policy and it is important that you understand it and follow it. Consult the relevant health and safety staff if there are any issues around the activities you are undertaking.

Insurance

The basic rule of insurance is disclosure i.e. you must always make the insurers aware of what your organisation is doing. There may, for instance, be public liability issues if you are engaging in work with members of the community. It is therefore important that, at the planning stage of any activity, you notify the members of your staff who deal with insurance and risk management so that they can liaise with the insurers.

Participants' expenses

Information on how to handle this issue is contained in CEL 08 (2009) "Guidance on reimbursement of Out-of-Pocket Expenses for Volunteers within NHSScotland".