Project CONCORD: Putting people at the heart of health and care in Coventry and Warwickshire

How we’re addressing the challenge

Health and care services in Coventry and Warwickshire are changing. We are providing more care closer to home, making better use of digital tools where appropriate, and focusing on keeping people well, not just treating illness.
We are also making more decisions locally, so the people and organisations who know their communities best can shape services.

To make these changes work, we are making sure patients, carers and local communities are listened to. The NHS also has a legal duty to involve people in decisions about their health and care, and we are working to make this involvement clearer, more consistent and more meaningful.

We are improving how we show people the impact of their feedback, and we are sharing good examples of involvement across health and care organisations so that everyone benefits from what we learn.

What we’re doing

To make sure decisions about health and care in Coventry and Warwickshire are shaped by what matters most to the people who use services, Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care System (ICS) is creating a shared framework for public involvement.

This work, called Project CONCORD, is being developed by Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care Board (ICB), Warwick University, Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust, George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust, Coventry City Council, Warwickshire Country Council, local voluntary organisations, Healthwatch and community leaders.

The goal of the project is to focus on understanding what good involvement looks like locally and agreeing a shared way of working across all health and care organisations.

The framework will:

• Learn from local community groups and organisations about what’s already working, from Coventry Voice and Warwickshire Place Partnerships to NHS patient experience groups and many others. 
• Provide anyone working with local people access to useful research, practical tools and clear guidance, all based on what we know works in our area. 
• Support organisations that are designing or changing services to use the framework to plan and deliver good involvement, meet NHS legal duties and make sure people’s feedback shapes services.  
• Enable organisations and new initiatives in health and care services, to make decisions that put local people at the centre and meet legal requirements around involvement and consultation.
• Assure the Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) that, by using the framework, teams are meeting their responsibilities and putting people at the heart of everything they do.

By taking this approach, we will be making sure people are involved in ways that suit their communities and experiences, that feedback from patients and the public is taken seriously and used to shape services, and that NHS organisations meet their legal duties to involve and consult people properly.

What’s already happened and what’s next?

The project began in November 2024 and will run for 18 months, following a series of clear stages.
During the first stage, we planned how the project would work. This included setting up the approval process, agreeing how we would collect information, and deciding who needed to be involved. People from the NHS, local councils, voluntary organisations and members of the public are all taking part.

Next, we focused on listening and gathering information. We spoke to NHS and local authority staff across Coventry and Warwickshire to understand how they currently involve patients and communities. We also collected examples of what has worked well and where things could have been better. 

At the same time, we met with community groups, voluntary organisations and public contributors to hear what matters most to them and how they want to be involved in decisions.

Now we have collected all this information, we are bringing people together to help design the new involvement framework. Workshops are taking place where patients, carers, community representatives and staff look at the findings, agree what good involvement should look like, and help shape the tools and principles that organisations will use in the future.

Moving further into 2026, we will complete the framework and create supporting resources, such as a best practice toolkit and a collection of involvement examples. We will also prepare guidance for organisations, develop a directory of local expertise, and create an assessment tool to help teams review and improve their involvement work.

By the end of the project, Coventry and Warwickshire will have a clear, evidence based and locally grounded approach to involve people and communities in decisions about their health and care now and in the future.