The development of the Youth Commissioners model is a practical example of how to involve young people in commissioning health and social care services. Involving patients and service users in commissioning and designing services makes for more appropriate care, which is more likely to be taken up by those who need it. In addition, the model succeeds in simultaneously addressing service quality and wastage whilst building resilience and self-management amongst patients/service users.

The NIHR North Thames CLAHRC funded study developed and tested a model of patient involvement that can demonstrate improvements in service commissioning and continues to demonstrate benefits for young people and their families living in Newham. Our model can be used by other commissioners and service providers to guide their work on service improvement. Our approach provides value far beyond tailoring services for young people living with diabetes in Newham. The NIHR has recommended that we disseminate the approach as best practice around the country. We have published a guide to using the model and are designing a webinar to complement this.  The model has been adopted by Dudley Council Integrated Commissioning Hub (2018-19) to help to achieve the Dudley Children's Services Active Involvement Strategy 2017.