Senior level support is essential to making involving successful. This will sometimes involve getting the board of your organisation to agree to the activity, and your chief executive to act as senior responsible officer. In many circumstances, though, it will be a simple as discussing the work with your line manager and agreeing that you can have time to do it.
Senior level commitment is not just important at the beginning, it is also essential through the planning and implementation stages and needs to be visible to the users themselves.
It’s important that user involvement features in the organisation’s day to day business and to show that it adds value to commissioning and decision making processes. It is also important that you get buy in from the CEO.
Adrian Mayers, NHS Hammersmith & Fulham Head of Long Term Conditions.
Senior support can help you secure resources, remove barriers and develop support within your organisation. If you are seeking funding or project support, it may be necessary to demonstrate this support.
Senior level staff can unblock things for you. Otherwise when you come unstuck and you get an issue that needs resolution, if there’s no interest or sign-up then it’s much, much more difficult.
Carol Cottingham, NHS Lincolnshire Head of Long Term Conditions.
Christine Mead (NHS Hammersmith and Fulham Senior Public Health Manager) explains why senior level support is important in diabetes user involvement.