What Matters to You and Why?

Local people are being invited to contribute their views as part of the development of a new integrated care strategy for health, care and wellbeing in Suffolk and north east Essex.

The strategy is being developed by the Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Partnership (SNEE ICP) which was established under the new Health and Care Act in July 2022 to further enable collaboration between local health and care organisations.

Councillor Andrew Reid from Suffolk County Council, the Co-Chair of the SNEE ICP, said: “The integrated care strategy is an opportunity for everyone – local residents, communities and our health and care staff – to inform the local priorities for improving health and wellbeing.”

Dr Ed Garratt, Chief Executive of NHS Suffolk and North East Essex, said: “Working in partnership through our integrated care system provides the opportunity for us to do things differently to before, such as reaching beyond ‘traditional’ health and social care services and thinking about the wider factors in our lives that impact on our health and wellbeing.”

The Department of Health and Social Care has asked all 42 integrated care systems in England to develop an initial integrated care strategy by the end of 2022. The strategy will then continue to be developed and strengthened on an ongoing basis through the SNEE ICP.

Susannah Howard, Integrated Care Partnership Director, said: “The strategy is important because it will set out how the health and care needs of local people will be met, not just by the NHS, but also social care, public health and our voluntary and community sector.

“It will inform local NHS and county council commissioning plans and the work of NHS trusts and wider system partners. In Suffolk and north east Essex we plan to make our integrated care strategy available as an online resource, accessible to everyone interested in health and care.”

Members of the public are being asked to share their responses to two key questions – “What matters to you and why?” and “How should we be ‘thinking differently’ in health and care?”.

You can contribute through a range of different channels including:

• Directly through this link on the Suffolk and North East Essex ICS website
• emailing sneeics.admin@nhs.net 
• through either Healthwatch Essex, Healthwatch Suffolk or other local patient engagement forums
• through some Community Conversations events being organised by local voluntary and community sector organisations
• by visiting our pop-up video booth, which will be visiting 12 locations around Suffolk and north east Essex during October and November, or
• by attending a specific themed online workshop to share evidence and lived experience

Dates and details on how to access all of these activities will be available on the ICS website as they are confirmed.