HNA_04AchievingHealth Needs Assessment
Use Lived Experience to Shape Health Needs Assessments
Summary
Engage patients with lived experience to help tailor how practices assess and respond to local population health needs.
Supporting information
Traditional health needs assessments often miss the voices of the most excluded communities. Incorporating lived experience ensures assessments capture the real barriers patients face and identifies solutions that will actually work.
Approaches to implementation:
- Recruit patients from your Focus Patient groups to advise on health needs assessment design
- Use creative engagement methods such as community conversations, walking interviews, or photo-voice projects
- Provide appropriate compensation for patients' time and expertise
- Ensure findings directly influence practice priorities and service design
- Share how patient input has shaped changes to maintain trust and encourage ongoing engagement
Key benefits: Creates health needs assessments that truly reflect community needs and priorities, leading to more effective interventions that address the root causes of health inequalities.
Resources
- BMA patient and public involvement - a tool kit for GPs
- Trauma informed co-production
- Co-production guide (HEEC)
- National Voices
- Experienced-based co-design toolkit (point of care foundation)
- Co-production: what it is and how to do it
- NHSE co-production resource toolkit
- NHS Tameside and Glossop co-production guide and toolkit
- Co-production guide for Northern Ireland
Links open on other organisations' websites.