The Covid-19 pandemic has required NHS boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships to rapidly change services and provide care in new and different ways, however, the duty to involve people as important as ever.

Involving people early and the process brings many benefits when organisations are considering changes to local services. Proposals will take account of local needs and an open dialogue will encourage engagement with local people and communities.

A stakeholder analysis as a process that can be used to identify everyone who needs to be involved. Service providers should explain why the change is necessary and describe what is likely to change, they should also give communities a chance to respond to the proposals and listen to people's views.

A communication and engagement plan describes who you need to engage with as part of your work and how and when you will do this.

A robust communication and engagement plan will help you to identify who to engage with how best to do it when and what to say to communities, anticipate any difficulties people might face that could stop them taking part (for example social distancing measures or internet access if engaging digitally), think about what you will do with the feedback you receive from the engagement.

A plan allows you to share discuss and agree the communication and engagement approach especially with the affected communities and work together to overcome any barriers for participation.

When developing your communication and engagement plan think about how and when communication or engagement will take place with practical consider such as school holidays or availability of appropriate locations and staff, what methods may be best to use, how inclusive is the communication and engagement activity check if it meets people's needs and requirements, plan how people's feedback will be used to inform decisions, learn how to help improve future communication and engagement approaches. A communication and engagement plan does not have to be complicated or technical it should be in an easy to read format that can be shared with the communities for feedback. Communication and engagement plans should be developed with patients, carers and potentially affected people at the start when considering changes to services, provide a clear timeline of planned communication and engagement activity throughout the different stages of the service change, be reviewed regularly during the engagement process to ensure that they are robust inclusive and consider different and changing needs of individuals and groups and provide opportunities to learn and improve future communication and engagement activities for service change.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland: Community Engagement can offer advice and support to NHS boards and health and social care partnerships on their engagement process when considering changes to a service.

Find out more at www.hisengage.scot/service-change