Making Your Voice Heard.. The first decade of the Eastern Health and Social Services Council

1998-99: Breaking New Ground - the Citizen's Jury

The Councils goal of having greater public involvement in health and social services came one step nearer with the Citizen's Jury initiative of July 1998.

This was a ground-breaking initiative here in Northern Ireland, but such schemes are already commonplace in other parts of Europe and in North America. A Citizen's Jury is a panel of people drawn from all walks of life who are asked to consider an important issue and make recommendations upon it. In the Spring of 1998, the Council joined with the Eastern Board to organise Northern Ireland's first such venture. Under the initiative, some 16 members of the public - the jurors - were selected from the local electoral register and asked to make recommendations on two main issues: How could Northern Ireland's health and social services be improved? How could people be given greater involvement in the running of these services?

After four full days of deliberations, the jury returned the following recommendations:

• There should be more consultation with the community on health and social services.
• New and more innovative forms of consultation should be applied.
• People should be offered information about services in plain and simple language without recourse to often complex health and social services jargon.
• Health and social services Boards and Trusts should make their business more open to community influence, and hold their meetings in more accessible locations - and at times outside of normal working hours.

The Citizen's Jury showed that community involvement in health and social services had truly arrived in style - and was here to stay!