Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which patient groups his Department has engaged in the development of the 10-Year Health Plan.
As well as engaging with patient groups, we have worked hard to engage the patients they represent directly. To engage with patients and the public, we launched Change NHS, the biggest ever conversation about the National Health Service since its creation, with over 190,000 contributions, and 1.6 million visits to our online portal so far. This is aiming to be broadly representative of England's population.
Additional community engagement has focussed on engagement with seldom heard groups. We’ve worked closely with charities, faith groups, health and care providers, local government, and others, to ensure we hear from demographics and communities that may experience barriers to being involved, and to whom the Government often fails to reach.
Further to this, we have also engaged and heard from over 1,600 stakeholder partners, over a quarter of whom advocate for different patient groups.