In the autumn of 2018 a diverse group of Scottish Citizens gathered over three days to make recommendations on shared decision-making in health and social care.
24 people shared ideas, opinions and experiences and questioned outside ‘experts’ before attempting to reach some consensus. The Citizens’ Jury was facilitated by Peter Bryant and Jez Hall of Shared Future CIC.
The Our Voice Citizens’ Jury on Shared Decision-making: Interim Report documents the process followed and lists, in the participants’ own words, their recommendations.
The Citizens’ Jury presented their 13 recommendations to Dr Catherine Calderwood, Chief Medical Officer and other key stakeholders in health and social care at an event in Dundee on 6 February 2019. These stakeholders discussed the implication of the recommendations, and the outputs of the event will be incorporated into a final report on improving Shared Decision Making.
The question the Jury was asked to consider was:
‘What should shared decision making look like and what needs to be done for this to happen?’
Launching the recommendations
On Wednesday 6th February the Scottish Health Council and Chief Medical Officer’s Realistic Medicine Team launched the Recommendations from Scotland’s Citizens’ Jury on Shared Decision Making.
At the launch event, held in the Steeple Centre in Dundee participants explained the recommendations and the rationale behind them.
Conversations took place to look at how the recommendations could be taken forward by changing how services are delivered or by informing policies that encourage people to take an active part in maintaining their health. Thereby contributing towards both preventing and treating illness.
‘We have done the task we were set and now rely on you to take our recommendations further’ were the final words from Brian, a member of the Citizens’ Jury.
Download the Our Voice Citizens’ Jury on Shared Decision-making interim report to see all the recommendations and a description of the process used to create them.
The Scottish Government made the following clear commitment:
‘The Scottish Government is committed to carefully consider each of the jury’s recommendations and reply to them all, either with a commitment to action or an explanation as to why that recommendation cannot be taken forward’
Watch Dr Catherine Calderwood’s YouTube statement about the launch.
Find out more about this project on the website of the Scottish Health Council
Evaluation report released January 2020
An evaluation of the Citizens’ Jury approach was published in January 2020.
The evaluation concludes that the Jury successfully provided insights on how shared decision-making in Scottish health and care might be strengthened.
It also demonstrated that Citizens’ Juries can be an innovative and useful way to involve citizens in the policy-making process.
Jury members reported that they would recommend taking part in a Jury to family and friends, and that they would be willing to participate in another Jury on a different topic.
Policy makers considered the Jury useful for validating current and planned work programmes. The Jury’s recommendations have directly influenced the development of a set of question prompts that can be used to promote shared decision-making to healthcare professionals. They have also helped in the creation of an educational module on shared decision-making. The willingness of policy makers to commit from the outset to responding to the Jury’s recommendations also contributed to the success of the Citizens’ Jury approach.