Citizen Ambassador reports
About the Citizen Ambassador Programme
Our Citizen Ambassador programme is a commissioned project which is an award winning collaboration between Surrey Heartlands HCP and Healthwatch Surrey. Now in its 4th year the aim of the programme is to maximise the representation of different citizen voices by engaging and involving people who do not already consistently engage in service change within the NHS. There are currently 5 Citizen Ambassadors embedded in their workstreams: Mental Health, Women and Children’s, Cancer, Digital and Prevention.
Citizen Ambassador Job Summary
Within a designated Surrey Heartlands Health & Care Partnership programme:
- Contribute to the co-design of their service change programme by being an independent voice, bringing their own insight gained from engaging with local people and communities
- Attend engagement events to engage with local communities, to develop an enhanced ‘live’ perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing the service change, and to report back to the workstream including key themes and areas for further investigation
- Strategically influence and improve the quality of health services by ensuring that the views of the silent majority (including patients, their carers and families) are represented at all levels and by challenging professionally held assumptions
- Guide the focus of discussions and decisions around people who use services
- Bring a different perceptive which can challenge existing preconceptions
- Invigorate debate and discussion with new ideas and different ways of thinking
- Help identify the key outcome measures that patients and families would be most interested in
- Maintain independence and provide constructive challenge
