The Virtual Panel is made up of individuals who have either agreed to being contacted to share their views in the future about various health related issues or are existing partners who we already regularly contact and work with. The panel members don’t need to meet up as information is shared via email or the post.
All members of the panel have equal rights to participate in the panel’s activity irrespective of who they are and which organisation they represent.
The Primary Care Trust (PCT) hopes the panel will be an easy, convenient and accessible tool to engage with or receive opinions from individuals or organisations interested in sharing their views on the wide ranging business areas of this PCT.
The idea behind the panel is to allow its members to pick and choose which consultation exercises they wish to participate in or have an interest in. If they don’t wish to be involved in particular consultation there is no obligation on them to do so.
Once it is fully up and running, Virtual Panel members will be able to respond to consultation exercises online, in writing and eventually via SMS text messaging.
Using the contact information we have for a panel member, i.e. e-mail or postal address, the member will be invited to participate in a wide range of consultation initiatives. These could range from gauging opinion on a particular service change to being asked their opinion on specific PCT documents or joining a group.
For those panel members who expressed a preference to be contacted via e-mail, they will receive a personal e-mail solely addressed to them. This means only their name appears in the sent to line. This feature has been included to respect an individual member’s privacy and avoid misuse of personal information.
Where appropriate, the panel member will also be asked to cascade information about a specific consultation exercise to groups or colleagues they work with. This means they may choose as well as responding as an individual to also send through a group response. A good example of this might be a community development worker, a SureStart centre manager or a voluntary organisation lead contact.
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Anyone with an interest in sharing their views about health and social care services and participating in engagement/consultation exercises.
Do I need any particular skills or qualifications to become a member?
No. Although for the online facility you will need some basic computer skills, have an e-mail account and have access to a computer.
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Unfortunately no you can’t. By sending everything to everyone it will hopefully encourage panel members to share their views about topic areas they might not normally have been interested in. However, as indicated above, once you have been contacted about a particular consultation or meeting, there is no obligation for you to take it further if you do not wish to.
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You can join the Virtual Panel by:
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