How to get involved

Getting Involved in your local NHS

 The NHS in Cambridgeshire is committed to involving patients and the public in planning, improvement and delivery of local healthcare services and responding to your feedback.
It’s important that we constantly talk to our residents and patients about the services we provide and to understand what is working and what can be improved.  We do this in a number of ways:

• Involve patients and the public more effectively and implement changes based on their feedback and experiences
• Involve people from communities that are traditionally excluded or marginalised
• Make improvements based on involvement work such as surveys
• Sustain and spread good practice across all areas of the organisation
• Work closely with partners including local charities, third sector bodies such as Age Concern, COPE, Cambridgeshire County Council, neighbourhood forums and many others

Join our membership database

Why not get your details added onto our membership database to be considered for various projects where you can have an input - from simply talking to us about your experience to attending regular planning meetings.  Call the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) on 01223 725 588 or email yourviews@cambridgeshire.nhs.uk

Sign up to our newsletter

You can also sign up to our newsletter to get more information direct from our Chief Executive Dr Sushil Jathanna in his weekly journal and other news about what’s happening from NHS Cambridgeshire who buys all primary care services for the county, health news and more.

Cambridgeshire Local Involvement Network (LINk)

LINk is a network of local people and organisations working together to improve and shape local health and social care services. By working with healthcare commissioners and providers and sharing your views, you can support their work and together, can improve not just your own healthcare, but the care provided for the whole community.

What does Cambridgeshire LINk do?

Cambridgeshire LINk has been set up  to make sure that people in the county get the health and social care services they need.

It can:
Ask local people their thoughts on health and social care services

• Gives people the chance to suggest ideas to help shape and improve on services in the future
• Look into specific issues of concern to the community through its various work groups made up of volunteers
• Make recommendations to the people who plan and run the services and expect a response within a specific amount of time
• Ask for information and expect answers
• Carry out visits, when necessary, to see if services are working well (visits are carried out under safeguards)
• Refer issues to the local councils Overview and Scrutiny Committee if it seems that action is not being taken.

Anyone can get involved in Cambridgeshire LINk and by becoming involved you can get attention for neglected issues or ideas, help the community to speak with a stronger local voice and help improve services for everyone in the county.

Who do I contact for more information or to get involved?

For all enquiries please telephone 0300 365 1245, email office@cambridgeshirelink.org.uk  write to:

Cambridgeshire ACRE
32 Main Street
Littleport
Cambs
CB6 1PJ

or visit www.cambridgeshirelink.org.uk  

Together you can help shape local health and social care services in Cambridgeshire. People in your community are already having their say – Where’s your voice? Get Involved today!’ 

Other ways to get involved…

There are plenty of other ways you can involved in shaping healthcare in Cambridgeshire:

• Join a local patient or user group.  Ask at your GP surgery or the Hospital for details 
• Get involved in the planning, commissioning and delivery of local services by contacting yourviews@cambridgeshire.nhs.uk
•  Join our customer panel and take part in focus groups, surveys, local events, meetings and testing of new services. Contact PALS on 01223 725 588 or email yourviews@cambridgeshire.nhs.uk  for more information and to join
• See the Public Consultation section of the website for changes to local services and how you can have your say including local events and surveys
• Post a comment on our website, whatever your experience we want to hear your views.
  Attend an NHS Cambridgeshire or one of your local hospital board meetings. Contact us on 01223 725 588 or for details of dates and times on our website and Cambridgeshire hospital websites
• Go online to Patient Opinion at www.patientopinion.org.uk or NHS Choices at www.nhschoices.nhs.uk and tell us about your experiences of the NHS to help us improve local health services
• If you have a compliment or complaint about any NHS service call the Patient Advice and Liaision Services on 0800 279 2535 or 01223 725588
• Get involved in your Local Involvement Network (LINks) and have a say on Health and Social Care issues.

Do you have an idea of how you'd like to get involved and it's not here? We want to hear from you. Please contact yourviews@cambridgeshire.nhs.uk or call the Public Engagement team on 01223 725 325.