How you can get involved

How you can get involved in the Health and Wellbeing Board.

You can get involved in a number of ways:

  • email or post a written question;
  • ask an oral question at a meeting;
  • attend and listen to a meeting;
  • respond to consultations; and/or
  • suggest through an appropriate representative, a discussion item for the agenda.

Members of the public are invited to ask questions relating to the work of the Health & Wellbeing Board (Croydon), either in advance or at the meeting, during the Public Questions item on the agenda. You may ask one question plus one supplementary question.

Details of the question, the name of the person asking it and the response provided, will be included in the minutes of the meeting. Any question which cannot be answered at the meeting, or which requires a fuller response, will receive a response in writing from the appropriate Board member or officer, within three weeks of the meeting.

Written questions must be no longer than 50 words and should be submitted by e-mail, fax or letter (details at the bottom of this page), by noon on the Friday prior to the meeting, indicating whether they are for public submission to the meeting or for a private response. The Chair has the discretion to disallow any question which is considered inappropriate.

Attending a Health & Wellbeing Board meeting

All Health & Wellbeing Board meetings are open to the public, except for the rare occasions when confidential information is due to be discussed. The agendas, reports and minutes of all of Health & Wellbeing Board meetings can be viewed and downloaded from the Croydon Council website using the link at the bottom of this page.

If you would like to be notified by email of the publication of papers for the meetings, please contact democratic.services@croydon.gov.uk. Meeting papers are also available from Croydon's central library.

Speaking at a Health & Wellbeing Board meeting

Committee meetings take place in public; public participation is at the discretion of the Chair. Public question time will be limited to 15 minutes. Questions must not refer to any matter which would break personal or commercial confidentiality, such as the treatment of an individual patient or matters relating to a complaint or individual staffing or contractual issue.

Types of questions that may be rejected include those relating to:

  • issues that do not affect the Borough
  • individual complaints
  • individual members of staff
  • area planning or licensing (alcohol, gambling) matters
  • subjects that have already been considered in the last six months
  • subjects that cannot be answered in public in accordance with Access to Information legislation.

Why is public involvement important to Health & Wellbeing?

Public Health and the wellbeing of citizens is too important to be left to professionals, because the public is paying for it. More importantly, the services provided and the decisions made will only reflect the way professionals want to work and not how people want to live and to die. In short, public involvement injects reality into how needs are assessed and how services are designed.

Enquiries not appropriate for the Board will not be addressed at these meetings but through other established routes, such as the CCG or HealthWatch.

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