This report presents the findings from the NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board’s (ICB) engagement with local communities regarding the future of Level 3 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) services at Furness General Hospital (FGH). The engagement was prompted by the temporary suspension of Level 3 ICU care at FGH in September 2024 due to longstanding staffing challenges, with critically ill patients being stabilised locally and then transferred to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary (RLI). Independent clinical reviews in 2025 supported this interim model as the safest option.

An engagement process was undertaken between October and November 2025, including public meetings, drop-in events, direct submissions and online feedback.

Read the full report here.

In November 2023, NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Commissioning Board (ICB) and Lancashire and South Cumbria’s Provider Collaborative Board (PCB) identified secondary care orthodontics as one of three ‘fragile’ services within the system. This was indicated due to significant gaps in existing service provision, attributable to difficulties in the recruitment and retention of consultants into parts of the system. It is recognised nationally that there is a shortage of Orthodontic Consultants, and following several months of advertisement, the system has been unable to recruit to the substantive vacancies and this has had a knock-on effect across the system, as well as causing significant inconvenience to patients and their families. Orthodontics was, therefore, prioritised for transformation and improvement

Healthwatch Westmorland and Furness has provided a comprehensive insight report which is complimentary to the insight work of the integrated care board (ICB) and reflects what patients are also telling us. This helps to shape the ICB’s strategic priorities and in particular will contribute to the development of a
Women’s Health Strategy.

Download the report here

Lancashire and South Cumbria’s Provider Collaborative Board and Integrated Commissioning Board identified secondary care orthodontics as one of three ‘fragile’ services within the system in November 2023, due to having significant gaps in existing service provision, principally created by difficulties in the recruitment and retention of consultants into parts of the system. Orthodontics was, therefore, prioritised for transformation and improvement.

The purpose of the Orthodontics Collaborative programme is to create a robust and sustainable service for the Lancashire and South Cumbria population, ensuring timely access and reducing unwarranted variation in access and clinical outcomes irrespective of a patient’s place of residence.

A ‘case for change’ document has been created which highlights some areas of particular interest to the Orthodontics Collaborative programme and a possible solution to the issues. This is informed by data and clinical expertise within the programme group.

To ensure the case for change is supported by patient-led insight, a plan for engagement has been developed and implemented. This report outlines the findings of the engagement insight gathering process and offers recommendations for progressing the development of the new service model.

Read the full report here

Over a six-month period, young people with epilepsy and their parents or carers currently attending epilepsy transition clinics were asked to provide their feedback, thoughts and concerns about the transition to adult epilepsy services. Although many expressed an interest in getting involved, only 16 people completed the detailed survey. Over a third (37.5%) of these were the young epilepsy patients themselves.

The feedback received identified that the paediatric epilepsy services was a good or excellent service which helped control or stabilise seizures, was professional and informative, where patients and families could speak to someone and have concerns addressed promptly. They helped young people feel they could accomplish things, despite their epilepsy

Download the full report

The NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) along with the NHS Trusts in Lancashire and South Cumbria have a joint vision to improve our clinical services through collaboration.

To achieve this, the Vascular Network Board is investigating the possibility of a move to a network model with the provider NHS Trusts working collaboratively as a connected network of service providers. This is being undertaken with the support of senior clinicians and departmental leads.

A due process of assurance with NHS England and governance through the ICB is being followed including engagement with patients and elected members through Health Overview and Scrutiny Committees and Health and Wellbeing Boards. As part of this process the ICB must evidence it has upheld its duty to involve patients and the public in its decision making.

As the programme develops its plans, engagement is needed at each stage of the process.

This report outlines the method and findings of the engagement carried out with patients during the NHS England stage 2 assurance process, also referred to as pre-consultation engagement.

Read the full report here

Tier three weight management services are a specialised form of weight management, typically offered through NHS services, that provide intensive support for individuals struggling with obesity. These services often involve a multi-disciplinary team (MDT) approach, incorporating expertise from dieticians, psychologists, physical activity specialists and other healthcare professionals. The goal is to help individuals achieve sustainable weight loss and improve their overall health through lifestyle changes, behavioural modifications and in some cases with the aid of weight-loss medications.

Tier three services are a step below the more extreme tier four, which involves patients undergoing bariatric surgery. Typically, a patient will only access tier four having demonstrated a genuine attempt to manage their weight under a tier three service.

In Lancashire and South Cumbria, services are delivered in a non-uniform way based on historical commissioning arrangements inherited by the ICB, which replaced the former eight clinical commissioning groups (CCGS) in Lancashire and South Cumbria. Access to services can be further complicated by providers being awarded contracts in other areas of the country and thus obtaining a ‘qualifying contract’ under the NHS’s patient choice framework.

The ICB has committed to looking at ways to standardise tier three weight management services across Lancashire and South Cumbria to reduce inequity and postcode lotteries and to ensure best value for money both for the NHS and for taxpayers living in the region. As part of this review, the views of patients who have experienced the current tier three weight management services in Lancashire and South Cumbria were sought.

Read the full report here

There was an extraordinarily high response rate to this engagement exercise with patients universally making the case for a service to be retained in the village of Coniston. More than a third of the practice population gave their opinion to the ICB survey and/or face-to-face engagement sessions.

Feedback has strongly suggested that losing a service in the village itself would be a significant blow to the population of Coniston. Notwithstanding the additional travel time to surgeries that are further afield – and with limited public transport options available – the loss of access to prescription medications within the village would cause significant inconvenience to those living nearby.

As a tourist hotspot, the village population grows significantly each year, and patients explained the current surgery also provides excellent healthcare services to those temporarily residing in the village either for leisure or seasonal employment and the loss of this local service would cause major difficulties in this regard.

There are also concerns about the standard of care that would be received at surgeries outside of Coniston in comparison to that currently experienced. Additionally there is a strong perception that practices are not currently accepting patients or are at least close to capacity.

Read the full report here

Feedback Fortnight is a two week period of engagement with children, young people and families/carers to ensure their active participation in decisions regarding their health and wellbeing.

This engagement was carried out from 3rd to 14th March 2025.

We gathered this feedback via questionnaires, one aimed at children and young people, and one aimed at parents/ carers. Where appropriate, the questions were phrased differently to help children and young people as young as 8 years old to respond.

A significant number of the children and young people we spoke to raised SEND related issues. You can find out more about the SEND work we do here.

Read the full report here

A quarterly survey is distributed to our Citizen Panel members to gather their views in relation to the NHS. Find the quarterly reports below.

• November 2025
• July 2025
• February 2025

Dill Hall Surgery is a GP Practice based in Accrington. The registered patient population, often referred to as list size, is 2,767.

General medical services at Dill Hall Surgery have been successfully managed on a temporary basis by the East Lancashire Alliance since December 2023. The temporary contract for the practice in the Acorn Primary Health Care Centre in Blackburn Road will come to an end in December 2025 and planning is now under way to determine the best way forward.

 A total of 150 people (around 5.3 per cent of the total number of patients registered at the practice) provided feedback. Engagement included an online survey, which ran from Monday 17 February to Monday 3 March 2025, and two face-to-face drop-in sessions which took place on 25 and 28 February.

Patients are evidently very happy with the service currently experienced and made positive comments about the staff and facilities provided by the East Lancashire Alliance at Acorn Primary Health Care Centre.

Those who engaged with the process explained they had already undergone one major change when relocating from the practice’s former premises in December 2023 and were very keen to avoid any further changes, especially when they are happy with the service as it is currently provided.

It is clear that any changes would cause a significant amount of stress and concern to the registered patients who are very supportive of the current management, GPs, nurses and reception staff at Dill Hall Surgery.

Read the full report here

The ICB has been coordinating a piece of work to review the service model for patients with Functional Neurological Disorders (FND). A new service model has been created which looks to overcome many of the issues with the service.

In February 2025 patients were asked to complete a questionnaire that looked at the draft model to gather opinion about it in order to inform a business case to support the implementation of the model.

The results of this are included in the listening to communities report here.

In the winter of 2024-2025, the ICB suicide prevention team started phase 2 of the ‘Let’s keep talking’ to prevent suicide campaign and held several engagement events across Lancashire and South Cumbria (LSC), attended mainly by men aged 40-54. This feedback was then used in the development of a Suicide Prevention campaign aimed specifically at men, launched in March 2025.

Read the full report

Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB’s women’s health programme commissioned VCFSE organisation, Lancashire Women, to gather feedback from women in Lancashire and South Cumbria around improving access to women’s health services and specifically about women’s health hubs – where these should be located, how women would like to access them, what type of advice/support they should provide and if there were any barriers around access. 2,484 women answered the survey, which ran from 20 January to 28 February 2025.

The full report can be read here.

In parallel, Lancashire Women met with women face to face across Lancashire and South Cumbria from January to April 2025. That report will be published shortly.

Over 200 South Asian ladies were invited to a listening event at the end of June 2024 at Sahara’s community centre in Preston to discuss barriers to cancer screening.

Read the full report.

Read the full report

An in-depth online survey was developed and circulated in July 2024, inviting patients and carers with lived experience of community equipment services to provide feedback on their experiences. 81 patients and carers responded to the survey and provided over five thousand words of narrative feedback. A handful of these respondents also elected to attend an online focus group session or one-to-one telephone or Teams interviews.

Read the full report here.

Community services in West Lancashire are currently provided by HCRG Care Group. The contract for delivering those services ceased at the end of April 2024. A single tender waver (STW) has been approved for May 2024 to March 2025. This is an award of contract while the ICB considers future arrangements. This is not a contract extension.  

Market engagement will take place in May 2024 to support ICB decision making around the new provider selection regime (PSR) and what needs to happen in respect of the delivery of community services in West Lancashire from April 2025. Meanwhile, patient engagement will also take place from May 2024 to support the ICB decision making around the PSR, as well as supporting the eventual procurement evaluation process. 

Prior to any new patient and public engagement taking place, it was deemed necessary to carry out a desktop review of recent (up to two years) engagement, insights and data in relation to the delivery of community services in West Lancashire order to consider what we already know.

The main themes which can be taken from this desktop review is that people in West Lancashire want to receive care in the community where possible and they want that care to be:

• Easily accessible
• Close to home
• Joined up
• Co-ordinated
• Person-centred
• Timely
• Direct access to the person/team delivering the service

Read the full report

This engagement was carried out between February and June 2024.

The engagement exercise sought to reach out to people with frailty and their carers to find out from their perspective what challenges they faced on a daily basis, how they access support and what could be done to make this better where they felt improvements were needed.

The engagement encompassed both face-to-face opportunities and a survey, available online or in paper form. Multiple colleagues, partners and community and voluntary sector organisations were contacted. This resulted in 146 people listened to face-to-face at engagement events across Lancashire and South Cumbria and 105 survey responses completed online.

Read the full report

Under the Pharmacy First service, most pharmacies can offer prescription medicine for some conditions, without people needing to see a GP or make an appointment.

Conditions they can offer prescription medicine for are:

• Impetigo (aged 1 year and over)
• Infected insect bites (aged 1 year and over)
• Earache (aged 1 to 17 years)
• Sore throat (aged 5 years and over)
• Sinusitis (aged 12 years and over)
• Urinary tract infections (UTIs) (women aged 16 to 64 years)
• Shingles (aged 18 years and over)

In order to support planned promotion of the service, the ICB carried out a survey to understand what existing awareness was of Pharmacy First and what people’s experiences of it were. The survey also explored people’s attitudes to pharmacy in general which will support with upcoming communications and engagement activity around pharmacy access.

Read the full report.

A quarterly survey is distributed to our Citizen Panel members to gather their views in relation to the NHS. Find the quarterly reports below.

• November 2024

Due to the Accrington Victoria Hospital building no longer being fit for purpose for healthcare provision, the PWE Accrington Victoria GP practice needs to relocate. Acorn Primary Health Care Centre in Blackburn Road is a potential new site for the practice, although no final decision has been made.

Our priority is to make sure patients have continued access to high-quality GP services. All the staff will remain unchanged so patients will continue to see the same people for their appointments. The way they contact the surgery will also remain unchanged, with the telephone number for the surgery remaining the same. The only difference would be the location of the practice.

We held a drop-in session on Tuesday 22 October for patients to express any concerns or comments about this relocation. We also invited patients to have their say through an online survey.

Read the full report.

Download the patient letter.

Primary Care Commissioning Committee Update – 28 October 2024

In July 2024 a big conversation was started with everyone who relies on, or is affected by, the way urgent and emergency care services are provided across Southport, Formby and West Lancashire. A report has now been published with an in-depth analysis on what people have said.

You can read the report in full here and learn more about what happens next as we progress towards a public consultation.

You said, we did | Your Say Shaping Care Together

Special allocation schemes were created to ensure patients who have been removed from a practice patient list can continue to access healthcare services. The NHS has a responsibility to ensure all patients can access good-quality GP services and that patients are not refused healthcare.

In Lancashire and South Cumbria, the special allocation scheme is currently provided by Compass Medical Practice. Compass Medical is run by Fylde Coast Medical Services (FCMS).

A review of the service was required ahead of a decision on a long-term provider for the service and whether a full procurement exercise is required.

As part of this review, feedback was sought from patients regarding the service they currently receive and what changes, if any, they would like to see. This took place throughout December 2023 and January 2024.

The survey received 46 responses - more than 17 per cent of patients. This was higher than anticipated at the beginning of the exercise and was supported by the practice writing to and texting all of its 259 registered patients.

The majority of patients were complimentary about the service they received from Compass Medical Practice. When asked what was good about the service, only 30 per cent provided negative comments. More than a quarter praised the staff while another 20 per cent commented on the high standard of care. And when asked what could be improved about the service, 43 per cent said ‘nothing’. A small number of areas that could be improved were raised, mainly around access and the location of the service.

Read full engagement report.

This engagement was carried out between January and May 2024. The purpose of the engagement was to look at carer experiences and challenges from racially minoritised communities on NHS service and hospital discharge. The focus group consisted of 42 unpaid carers from across East Lancashire and Blackburn with Darwen.

Read the full report here.

During September to November 2024, the ICB communications and engagement team engaged with members of the public across Lancashire and South Cumbria about what is important to them and their families when it comes to urgent care services. We asked what urgent care services they were aware, which they use, why they choose them and what their experience has been. The insight gathered has been fed into the Integrated Urgent Care Recommissioning Programme Group to help shape the design of the new proposed clinical model. 

Read the full report

Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB received £595,000 of funding to deliver women’s hubs through the Women and Children’s programme workstream. A scoping survey was sent to over 300 organisations and individuals asking for women and people assigned female at birth to share their thoughts on current provision of contraceptive and menopause services.

Read the full report here.

NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB) is set to procure community health services in West Lancashire due to the current contract with HCRG Care Group ceasing at the end of March 2026. 
 
The ICB formally agreed to a procurement exercise in June 2024 following patient and provider engagement. Following the decision, a review of all the services was carried out, as well as further public engagement on a range of topics that relate to the provision of services in the West Lancashire and could support the development of the community services specifications.   

Insights from various public engagement exercises throughout 2024 were used to further support the development of the community services specifications, detailed as one in the below desktop review.

Download the insight report

In May and June 2024, a questionnaire was developed and distributed which would ask people in West Lancashire about their views and experiences of local community services as part of a review of the delivery of community services in that area.

A total of 66 people completed the questionnaire, 55 of which had accessed community services, either directly or for someone they care for. Some rich insights were received which are detailed in the analysis report.

Read the analysis report.

Throughout September to November 2024, the ‘Your health. Your future. Your say.’ roadshow events took place in seven locations across the Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB area. They featured information about challenges and areas of focus for the ICB including challenges and opportunities with the quality and sustainability of health and care services, increasing health inequalities, hospital reconfiguration, integrated urgent care and transforming community care. Insights were also gathered through an ICB perception survey, an Integrated Urgent Care (IUC) survey and targeted engagement with health inclusion groups.

Read the full report

Haverthwaite Surgery is a GP practice in Backbarrow, near Ulverston, with a registered list size of just under 2,900 patients.

The surgery is based in premises built in 1992. In August 2023 the landlord served a section 25 notice requesting the practice either signs a new lease which would make them responsible for funding repairs of the building or vacates the premises. The notice requested that the tenants vacate the premises. 

Following a review of the options – and having heard the views of patients at the practice – it was agreed that land and a building nearby would be converted into a new surgery building. The landlord has agreed that until those new premises are ready, the practice can remain in its current building.

Read the full Haverthwaite Surgery engagement report.

Following the retirement of the two GP partners at Liverpool House Surgery practice in Cumbria, an engagement exercise was launched in March 2023. The purpose was to help us understand how changes at the practice would affect patients and to support us to make a decision on the future of the practice.

Read the full engagement report.

Throughout 2023 we undertook a series of listening events across Lancashire and South Cumbria and captured the themes, issues and concerns that people raised. These have been shared with those who attended to ensure we haven’t missed any of the points attendees wanted to make. You can read the reports from each of the listening events below:

• Barrow
• Blackburn with Darwen
• Burnley
• Central Lancashire
• North Lancashire
• Disability north west forum

Following on from previous work with partners, including NHS organisations, local authorities, children, young people and parents/carers and representatives from the Voluntary Community, Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE), a new model of delivery to improve services supporting the emotional wellbeing and mental health of children and young people aged 0-19/25 was co-produced.

To understand what values a child, young person and parent/carer would like to see in any new provider of mental health support services, a member of the ICB’s engagement team was asked to develop a survey. 

This survey ran in June 2023 and was intended to find out from young people and parents/carers the principles and values they wanted to see from such services and their staff so these could be fed into the procurement work.

Read the survey results.

Virtual wards were established in the second half of 2022. to allow patients to get the care they need at home safely and conveniently, rather than being in hospital. They enable more people to receive the acute care, remote monitoring and treatment they need in their own home.

The first virtual wards launched in a staggered approach in the August and have been growing ever since. Since their establishment, a programme of patient engagement has been encouraged to ensure quality of service and to enable continuous review and improvements to services.

Read the full report

A public engagement exercise was undertaken during September and October 2023 working closely with patients of Withnell Health Centre.

The engagement programme aims to support the procurement process and consisted of patients and public in the local area being asked to provide feedback on the service provided by Withnell Health Centre and to indicate what, if anything, could be improved about the service currently on offer. The engagement process is not intended to contribute to a decision about any potential procurement option. 

Patients have also been asked to identify what aspects of primary care provision they feel are most important to them.

The feedback from the patient engagement exercise is summarised in the evaluation report. The report is intended to be used to support the development of the service specification and to support the procurement process.

Download the final report here

Further to the mental health engagement with young people in 2022 and the development of a mental health campaign aimed at young people, three online questionnaires were developed in May 2023. The aim of these questionnaires was to understand if, how and where young people and their families, as well as education staff, were accessing mental health support, and whether they are aware of the Healthy Young Minds website. This was to help support the evaluation of the mental health campaign.

You can read the full engagement report on the Healthy Young Minds website: Healthy Young Minds :: Mental health campaign engagement (healthyyoungmindslsc.co.uk)

In October 2022, a short survey was developed to gather feedback on the draft priorities from people living and working in Lancashire and South Cumbria.

Read the summary results of the feedback:

• Summary of the findings
• ICP draft priorities analysis of feedback

You can also read the engagement feedback that was produced from identifying the change to places.

In October and November of 2022 we worked with Rock FM to hold four children and young people workshops with pupils from four local secondary schools.

The aim of the workshops was to understand what mental health means to young people and what they know about local services. This would then help to inform the development of a mental health campaign aimed at 11 to 18 year olds.

Find out more on the Healthy Young Minds website.

• Insights report: September to November 2024
• Insights report: June to August 2024
• Insights report: February to May 2024
• Insights report: December 2023 to January 2024
• Insights report: October to November 2023
• Insights report: August to September 2023
• Insights report: June to July 2023
• Insights report: April to May 2023
• Insights report: February to March 2023
• Insights report: December 2022 to January 2023
• Insights report: October to November 2022
• Insights report: July to September 2022