Evaluation of a deliberative approach to citizen involvement in health care priority setting Iestyn Williams Health Services Management, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK Daisy Phillips NHS County Durham and Darlington, Durham, UK Charles Nicholson University of Southampton, Southampton, UK, and Heather Shearer NHS Fife, Fife, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe and evaluate a novel approach to citizen engagement in health priority setting carried out in the context of Primary Care Trust (PCT) commissioning in the English National Health Service. Design/methodology/approach – Four deliberative events were held with 139 citizens taking part in total. Events design incorporated elements of the Twenty-first Century Town Meeting and the World Cafe ´, and involved specially-designed dice games. Evaluation surveys reporting quantitative and qualitative participant responses were combined with follow-up interviews with both PCT staff and members of the public. An evaluation framework based on previous literature was employed. Findings – The evaluation demonstrates high levels of enjoyment, learning and deliberative engagement. However, concerns were expressed over the leading nature of the voting questions and, in a small minority of responses, the simplified scenarios used in dice games. The engagement exercises also appeared to have minimal impact on subsequent Primary Care Trust resource allocation, confirming a wider concern about the influence of public participation on policy decision making. The public engagement activities had considerable educative and political benefits and overall the evaluation indicates that the specific deliberative tools developed for the exercise facilitated a high level of discussion. Originality/value – This paper helps to fill the gap in empirical evaluations of deliberative approaches to citizen involvement in health care priority setting. It reports on a novel approach and considers a range of implications for future research and practice. The study raises important questions over the role of public engagement in driving priority setting decision making. Keywords Evaluation, Health care, Priority setting, Rationing, Public engagement, Public involvement Paper type Research paper Introduction There are a number of reasons why the need to involve the public in health care priority setting has become increasingly accepted. First, there has been a growing The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1751-1879.htm The authors would like to thank the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement and Warwick University Business School for funding the work presented in this paper. Evaluation of a deliberative approach 5 Received 4 January 2013 Revised 4 January 2013 Accepted 10 March 2013 Leadership in Health Services Vol. 27 No. 1, 2014 pp. 5-19 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1751-1879 DOI 10.1108/LHS-01-2013-0002