Trust Board Meeting: Wednesday 10 September 2014
TB2014.101
Title
Membership Strategy update
Status
For information.
History
Updated Membership Strategy and action plan agreed by the
Board in January 2014.
This update considered by the Foundation Trust Programme
Board in August 2014.
Board Lead(s)
Key purpose
Andrew Stevens, Director of Planning and Information
Strategy
TB2014.101 Membership Strategy Update
Assurance
Policy
Performance
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Oxford University Hospitals
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Executive Summary
1. The paper sets out the Trust’s progress against its Membership Strategy and
associated action plan, as well as providing a breakdown against the measures
that Monitor use to measure the representativeness of our Foundation Trust
membership.
2. The Trust is meeting its targets in terms of numbers and the diversity of its
membership, although some more work needs to be done to recruit younger
members.
3. The report sets out plans for the next few months’ recruitment.
Recommendations
4. The Board is asked to:
•
Note the current membership as set out in this report and actions to ensure it
reflects the local population.
•
Expect to receive a further update in April 2015.
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Oxford University Hospitals
TB2014.101
Membership Strategy Update
1.
Purpose
1.1
This report updates the Board on the activity and progress in recruitment of
members from hard to reach groups.
1.2
The activities listed below are in addition to regular recruitment activities that
are undertaken with patients, members and the general public in order to
maintain and increase the Trust’s membership.
2.
Background
2.1
At its meeting in January 2014 the Trust Board agreed an updated
Membership Strategy and Action Plan which included actions for general
recruitment and against the specific measures that Monitor asks for. We
have continued to make good progress in recruiting ethnic minorities since
that meeting and are continuing to look at the ways in which the 2011
Census figures show that our local populations have changed. In particular,
the numbers of white Europeans have increased substantially across the
county.
2.2
The Membership Strategy lists its three aims as being:
• to build a substantial and representative membership;
• to support our members being well-informed, motivated and engaged;
and
• to provide our members with opportunities to help shape how our
services develop.
2.3.
Delivering these aims is intended to support OUH in meeting its objectives,
not least through being a responsive organisation with a good understanding
of the needs of its patients and the communities it serves.
3.
Update on action plan
3.1
Our action plan referenced the pockets of deprivation in Oxford and in
Banbury. We organised a recruitment event at Oxford United in April 2014,
the aim of which was to reach demographic groups that had previously been
under-represented in our membership, including recruiting more men. This
was a successful recruitment and engagement event. We plan to repeat this
again this year and to explore the possibilities of attending other sporting
events.
3.2
We recruited a large number of new members at the OX5 Run in March and
the Race for Life event in July. We now recruit at these events annually.
3.3
We have undertaken regular recruitment exercises in shopping centres and
supermarkets in Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire. This has helped
increase our membership by age range and ethnicity. We intend to continue
these recruitment exercises over the next year.
3.4
We have recruited at the many events run by Charitable Funds, as well as at
Biomedical Research Unit public talks.
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Oxford University Hospitals
3.5
3.6
3.7
4.
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We have had membership forms available at the Oxfordshire Clinical
Commissioning Group’s locality meetings and consultations, but have found
that the majority of people attending are already members.
The Trust has changed its database provider from Capita to Membership
Engagement Services (MES). This move has been successful and we are
pleased with the responsiveness of our new service.
We have commissioned MES to run a large scale recruitment exercise in the
Trust’s outpatients departments on all sites during September 2014. We
hope to recruit 1,200 new members by doing this. This should provide new
members by age and gender, from a good geographical spread and from an
ethnic mix reflecting the diversity of the Trust’s patients.
Analysis of membership
4.1
A membership breakdown report is provided, based on a membership of
6,988 at 22 July 2014.
Geographical
4.2
The focus in terms of geography over the next few months will be on
continuing to recruit members from Northamptonshire and Warwickshire.
We have worked with councillors in Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, GP
practices and libraries to try and increase membership in those areas.
Geographical Constituencies
Cherwell
Oxford City
Oxfordshire
Surrounding
Counties
Members
974
1,394
South Oxfordshire
764
Vale of White Horse
988
West Oxfordshire
710
Berkshire
190
Buckinghamshire
1252
Gloucestershire
81
Northamptonshire
463
Warwickshire
114
Wiltshire
255
Rest of England
435
Out of catchment
8
Total
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6,988
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Oxford University Hospitals
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Gender
4.3
The breakdown shows our membership at 58% female and 42% male as
compared to the Oxfordshire norm of 51% female to 49% male.
Gender
Members
% of members
Oxfordshire
population
% of
population
Female
4081
58.40%
334,637
50.53%
Male
2903
41.54%
327,627
49.47%
4
0.06%
0
0.00%
6,988
100.00%
662,260
100.00%
Unknown
Total
Ethnicity
4.4.1 The breakdown shows that our membership is broadly in line with the ethnic
breakdown of the population of Oxfordshire.
4.4.2 The FT membership team work with the Patient and Public Involvement team
and other colleagues to maximise the opportunities to recruit from hard to
reach groups. The PPI team take recruitment leaflets to events that they
attend such as the Barton Community event. The FT membership team also
took a stall at the launch of the Oxfordshire NHS BME Network to raise
awareness of the Trust’s membership scheme amongst BME staff.
4.4.3 During the year the FT membership team have again been in contact with
local ethnic minority community groups to encourage them to attend our
events, but also to invite them to join.
4.4.4 The FT Membership team again attended the Chinese New Year
celebrations at the Town Hall in February where we had a stand to recruit
from amongst the 800-1,000 attendees to this event (most of whom come
from Oxfordshire’s Chinese community). This is always a good opportunity
for community engagement as well as a recruitment opportunity.
Ethnic
group 1
Members
% of
membership
Oxfordshire
population
% of
population
White
5634
80.62%
594,004
90.85%
Black
97
1.39%
11,424
1.75%
Asian
274
3.97%
31,657
4.84%
Mixed
100
1.43%
13,233
2.02%
Other
24
0.34%
2,122
0.32%
Unknown
859
12.29%
0
0.00%
6,988
100.00%
653,798
100.00%
Total
1
As defined by Monitor.
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Oxford University Hospitals
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Age range
4.5.1 In terms of the age groups that Monitor requires FTs to measure against, we
have more work to do to recruit members aged between 17 and 21. A more
detailed breakdown shows our membership is disproportionately balanced
towards older age groups, with people aged over 50 over-represented in our
membership and all age groups under 40 under-represented. This is,
however, the general pattern for most membership organisations, including
other Foundation Trusts. We have been successful in recruiting more under
40s over the last year.
4.5.2 The FT membership team has attended a number of school careers fairs
alongside other OUH staff as part of our recruitment drive to recruit more
young people. Secondary schools and Sixth Forms have been contacted,
offering speakers with a view to using these speakers to recruit at the end of
the talks. We are also looking at ways we could link this work to public
engagement work by the BRC.
4.5.3 Oxfordshire Youth Parliament has agreed to have a link from its Facebook
page to our website advertising membership. We also regularly use the
Trust’s Facebook and Twitter accounts to invite people to join us, and hope
that this may also encourage a younger age profile to join.
4.5.4 We hope in the future to work closely with the young people’s representative
on the Council of Governors to particularly target recruitment to those aged
under 21.
Monitor Age
Range (eligible
population)
Members
% of
members
Oxfordshire
population
% of
population
Age 0 - 16
12
0.17%
134,671
20.33%
Age 17 - 21
179
2.56%
43,616
6.59%
Age 22+
5,981
85.59%
483,976
73.08%
Unknown
816
11.68%
0
0.00%
6,888
100.00%
662,263
100.00%
Total
Socio-economic groupings
4.6.1 Our membership accurately reflects the population in terms of socioeconomic groups.
4.6.2 Our last major recruitment through a patient mailing particularly focused on
postcodes in Oxfordshire with a predominance of D and E socio-economic
groups, so numbers have increased, but there is still more work to do. This is
a common experience amongst Foundation Trusts.
4.6.3 The team have targeted face to face recruitment at shopping centres where
there are likely to be higher numbers of members of the public from our
target groups. We have regularly recruited at Templars Square Shopping
Centre in Cowley and Castle Quay in Banbury as well as other shopping
centres in Oxfordshire and beyond. This form of recruitment remains part of
our action plan.
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Oxford University Hospitals
Socioeconomic
Grouping
(NRS)
TB2014.101
Members
% of
members
Oxfordshire
population
% of
population
ABC1
4,302
61.56%
120,843
62.88%
C2
1,327
18.99%
36,079
18.77%
D
1,277
18.27%
35,251
18.34%
Total
6,906
98.83%
192,173
100.00%
5 Membership Engagement
5.1
Members continue to be invited to regular talks organised by the Oxford
Biomedical Research Centre. We have very positive feedback from members
about these talks. In addition, members were invited to attend the BRC open
day in May, participate in the peer review process, invited to give their views
on different services and attend a public patient involvement event on
outpatients. Members have given very positive feedback about all of these
opportunities.
5.2
The FT membership team is again organising sessions for public and staff
members to find out more about what being a governor involves and will also
continue to advertise events such as the AGM and talks to members as well
as opportunities to give their views as they arise.
5.3
All members are sent an email or a letter every two months with a copy of
OUH News. Periodically all members get a mailing (as opposed to an email)
and members on email, or members who have expressed a particular
interest in a particular service area or attending events or talks, may receive
reminders in between these mailings about events. We have had positive
feedback from members about the frequency of mailings.
6 Conclusion
6.1
We have achieved the first part of our aim set out in the Membership
Strategy to increase the membership to at least 6,000 public members by the
time of election to the Council of Governors.
6.2
We have also achieved the aim set out in the Membership Action Plan,
agreed in January 2014, of recruiting at least 6,600 members by the date of
the first election, and 7,000 by authorisation. The Trust has already
exceeded the first number and is on course to achieve a membership of
8,000 by the time of authorisation.
6.3
We have stated an aim to have 9,000 members from Oxfordshire (1.5% of
the population) and 3,000 from our other catchment areas, within two years
of becoming a Foundation Trust.
6.4
Our next recruitment exercise will recruit from our outpatient base. We would
therefore expect members recruited through this exercise to reflect the
geographical and ethnic diversity of our patients. However, it is not likely to
improve the gap in terms of the older age profile of our members. We will,
however, commission our recruiters to particularly try and recruit younger
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Oxford University Hospitals
6.5
6.6
6.7
6.8
TB2014.101
members in an effort to improve our performance in this area of our
membership.
There will need to be further patient mailings and large scale recruitment
activities in order to achieve these increases in numbers in addition to the
normal on-going active recruitment which helps maintain our membership
level.
The FT Membership Team continue to write every month to every staff
leaver inviting them to convert their staff membership to public membership.
We anticipate that governor elections will offer some further opportunity for
recruitment.
The FT Membership Team are also working closely with our PFI partners
and the Medical Sciences Division in the University of Oxford to increase our
staff membership within these groups.
5. Recommendation
5.1
The Board is asked to note the membership as set out in this report and
actions to see that it reflects the local population.
5.2
The Board is also asked to expect to receive a further update in April 2015.
Andrew Stevens
Director of Planning and Information
Report prepared by:
Susan Brown, Senior Communications Manager
September 2014
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