Top tips for designing community listening projects: learning from the Wood Green Community Diagnostic Centre
Following a recommendation from Prof Mike Richard’s Diagnostics – Recovery and Renewal report, Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs) were set up to address a shortage of access to and waiting times for diagnostic tests. The Wood Green CDC opened in August 2022, in the heart of Haringey, and was one of the first CDCs to be located within a shopping centre – strategically placed to provide easy and equitable access to diagnostic tests for its local community. We share our top tips on how to approach a project like this.
- Partner with community organisations
Community organisations already have existing relationships with members of the community and understand the population better than anyone else. This knowledge is invaluable when creating engagement activities that are fully accessible and tailored to the community you want to work with. Collaboration with these organisations ensures the right people are in the room and builds a trust with community members that would otherwise take time to foster if working in isolation.
When working with Wood Green CDC, we ran a series of focus groups with Black Caribbean, Turkish and Kurdish, and Polish communities, within local spaces across Haringey. Focus groups were run in partnership with Public Voice, local community organisations (House of Polish and European Community, Roj Women’s Group, 4U2/Sewn Together) and CDC staff.
Through this collaboration with trusted organisations, we were able to engage a representative group of the community and hear their opinions. For example, communities highlighted that the ability to access healthcare in a convenient and local location was important– and sometimes a key factor in influencing whether they’d attend health appointments.
- Go to communities, don’t assume they will to come to you
It is important to understand that if you want to hear from communities, you need to be willing to work in communities. Go to spaces where communities already congregate and integrate with existing activities in community spaces. It is also important to be flexible to the needs of the community when planning events, considering factors such as timing, access requirements and availability of interpreters.
For example, for this piece of work, we ran sessions at a community coffee morning in Haringey Library and a session after a yoga class at The Selby Centre and the Community Leaders supported the work through providing interpretation for our discussions.
- Have NHS staff present
The feedback received from our work with the community in Haringey showed a need to build trust between people who stand to benefit from CDCs and the NHS services. Many people have had previous negative experiences, often linked to feeling dismissed or unheard. Having NHS staff present throughout the focus groups helped demonstrate to the communities a clear willingness to listen and have in-depth dialogue about the service. It also built trust with community members and created a springboard for future work.
- Use data to inform meaningful engagement
Whenever you are thinking about undertaking a community-based engagement project, there will likely be multiple different communities who could be involved. It is impossible to do one activity that meaningfully gathers insights and reflects the breadth of experiences and populations.
Data can help us understand which communities might be a priority to involve. This could be through understanding the communities which face the biggest health inequalities in the area, or those who are accessing services less regularly than would be expected.
We analysed both publicly available and service level data to understand which community groups were underrepresented at the Wood Green CDC and should be prioritised for engagement. Selection of priority groups were then further validated with insights provided by CDC staff. Through this process, we also identified where data capture could be improved to understand the impact of the CDC more effectively and know where to prioritise engagement.
- Be transparent about what you can and can’t change and report back the changes made
From the start of an engagement project, it is always good to be clear about the scope of the activities involved to help manage expectations. Sometimes we can work with people to make large changes to how our health care system works. Other times we might only be able to make smaller changes to things like information leaflets. Being open and honest with those you’re working with about these things builds trust and makes your work together meaningful and authentic.
This open and honest way of working also applies to providing those who are involved with updates on what changes have been made because of their work with you. This is sometimes referred to as the “you said, we did” approach. This helps to demonstrate to communities that the interactions were meaningful and that their contributions really make a difference, helping to build trust. It is also important to be honest about areas where changes couldn’t be made and why.
With Wood Green CDC, we heard that some people were excluded from attending due to the current opening hours of the service. As a result of this, the CDC have now extended their opening hours to later in the evening and some weekends. People also told us that the lack of flexibility in the appointment booking meant that they were being booked appointments when they couldn’t get to the service (i.e. before the Freedom Bus Pass allowed them to travel). The CDC have now introduced a booking system that makes it easier for people to get appointments that fit around their lives.
- Keep it up!
Once you’ve built your relationships within the community, it’s important to maintain them and continue to be a visible presence in the community. Are there opportunities to sustain the involvement you’ve been doing? Or are there new projects that you might be able to work together on?
Sometimes it’s good to just be present at coffee mornings or events in an informal capacity. This continued visibility shows communities that you are committed to them. This may even lead to opportunities naturally occurring through conversations, or communities coming to you with ideas themselves.
Insights from our community engagement work have fed into a long-term community engagement plan for the Wood Green CDC, designed to strengthen community relationships, tackle concerns raised and build trust in the service.
Sacha Jarrett, Communications and Engagement Manager at Whittington Health NHS Trust
The engagement work at Wood Green CDC is a great example of the benefits of engaging local residents and community groups as early as you can in a project. Engagement and co-production are integral to the planning, design and delivery of any project, not merely tools for review or ‘nice to haves’. Hearing directly from the community we are here to serve has allowed Wood Green CDC to be designed in a way that serves the unique needs of its local population, it’s no coincidence that the majority of patients seen at the Wood Green CDC come from the most deprived areas of Haringey. As a Haringey resident myself, I am excited to continue meeting many more members of the local community to ensure we are meeting the evolving needs of the local community.