Sustainable healthcare depends on people being actively engaged in maintaining their health, in managing the illnesses that affect them and being involved in designing and delivering healthcare systems.

To achieve this we need a well-informed population, professionals working with patients and carers as partners and person-centred healthcare that responds to what patients and the public need and say. We will:

• actively involve patients, carers and the public (lay partners) in our work
• support patients and carers to be more involved in their health and care by promoting the use of personalised care plans, shared decision-making, better provision of health information and measurement of outcomes that matter to patients and carers
• listen to, and act on, what patients, carers and the public say about their experience and involvement in care, research and innovation.

We are building a network of professionals and patients that will create change in individual care, organisational culture and systems of care. We are working with all our partners and across the Oxford AHSN region to make this happen. One example is the Leading Together programme.