Reaching out to community groups during our inspections of acute hospitals

We will be running community focus groups as part of our preparation for our inspections of NHS acute hospitals.

Partnering with Regional Voices, University of Central Lancashire (SpeakOut network) and other voluntary sector partners, we will reach people in communities who have experience of receiving care from acute hospitals. Over the next year, we will also speak to people who have received care from other health and social care sectors too.

The first community focus group takes place today. 12 other community focus groups will be held for the remaining hospital inspections.

More about the community focus groups

During these focus groups, we will:

• reach out to people receiving any type of service from the hospital.
• target patients that receive a specific service that we have identified as having possible risks.
• target people in specific communities e.g. in Muslim communities or people with learning disabilities.

We will be testing out the approach and the evidence gathered from the focus groups to help shape future inspections of services.

Regional Voices are also promoting the general public listening events to hundreds of voluntary and community groups and gathering evidence through email surveys. Where people want to talk with us face to face, we are offering them the chance to speak to a member of our Enquiries team.

Gathering more information from people in communities

The programme also includes work to involve people and gather their feedback from:

• advocacy organisations.
• volunteer programmes.
• other voluntary sector partners.

If you want more information about these community focus groups, please contact Clare Delap and Lucy Hamer at involvement.edhr@cqc.org.uk.