Citizens' Jury: process and evaluation
The Our Voice Citizens' Jury was made up of a diverse group of 24 members of the public in the local authority areas of Perth and Kinross, Dundee, Fife and Clackmannanshire.
Special effort was made during the recruitment process to achieve diversity within the group in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, geography, health literacy and people who identify as having a long-term health condition.
The aim of the jury was to produce a set of recommendations that answer the following question:
"What should shared decision making look like and what needs to be done for this to happen?"
Jury members were helped by 2 experienced facilitators from Shared Future, Peter Bryant and Jez Hall, who between them have run over 30 citizens’ juries on a range of topics over the last 15 years. Participants developed a set of recommendations through a series of small- and large-group activities over 3 days between the end of October and the end of November 2018.
The jury presented its recommendations to the Chief Medical Officer and a group of health and social care stakeholders at an event held in Dundee on 6 February 2019. The Scottish Government committed to consider each recommendation carefully and reply to them all, either with a commitment to action or an explanation as to why that recommendation could not be taken forward. The Scottish Government's response to the recommendations was published on the Realistic Medicine website in June 2019.
Evaluation report
We published an evaluation of the Citizens' Jury approach in January 2020. The evaluation concludes that the Jury successfully provided insights on how shared decision-making in Scottish health and care might be strengthened. It also demonstrated that Citizens' Juries can be an innovative and useful way to involve citizens in the policy-making process.
Jury members reported that they would recommend taking part in a Jury to family and friends, and that they would be willing to participate in another Jury on a different topic.
Policy makers considered the Jury useful for validating current and planned work programmes. The Jury's recommendations have directly influenced the development of a set of question prompts that can be used to promote shared decision-making to healthcare professionals. They have also helped in the creation of an educational module on shared decision-making. The willingness of policy makers to commit from the outset to responding to the Jury’s recommendations also contributed to the success of the Citizens' Jury approach.
Experience of Jury Members
In this short video, some of the Jury members describe their experiences of taking part.