I warmly welcome the new Labour administration’s commitment to listening and engaging.

When it comes to health and social care issues a meaningful commitment to change is critical.

Reform of Harrow’s Health and Wellbeing Board is at the heart of the change that is needed.

It must of course be a forum for dialogue between Harrow Borough Council, the Clinical Commissioning Group and partners across health services and in the charity sector.

But it must also be an conversational forum involving those who have the day-to-day knowledge about how services work and how they could work even better — the people of Harrow.

Too often a bureaucratic brick wall separates decision-makers from the very people who will be most affected by the decisions they are deliberating on.

This was sadly the case when the board, chaired by the former leader of Harrow Council, Councillor Susan Hall, refused to hear from carer in Harrow back in May about their experiences and in doing so, rejected the valuable contributions carers can make in designing improved services.

The most symbolic reform Labour could make would be to open up the health and wellbeing board to make it a genuinely democratic, accountable forum with co-design at its core.

A first step would be to reach out to the rich experiences, insight and understanding that carers have to offer.

And specifically, to work with — not against — the Carer Champions project on a shared agenda of creating peer-to-peer networks that share stories, skills and advice.

Conversation isn’t a one-off exercise, it’s a culture change. And in health more than in any other policy area, engagement isn’t a means to an end, it is the ends in itself.

Derek Baker

Carer Champion

Greystoke Avenue, Pinner