Elevate Partnerships

About the partnership

Elevate Partnerships is a Sussex-based consultancy partnership between Jane Lodge and Sonia Mangan, two senior practitioners with long careers across health, care and the voluntary sector. It helps NHS, local government and voluntary sector organisations listen to the people they serve, strengthen their partnerships and turn insight into clearer strategy, influence and impact.

Jane specialises in public involvement and inclusive, deliberative engagement, drawing on a long NHS career, and is now an academic at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Sonia has been a charity chief executive five times, most recently leading Carers Support West Sussex, a county-wide charity supporting unpaid carers. She began her career as a Registered Nurse and NHS manager, holds a Master’s degree in Dementia Studies, and brings expertise in strategy, board facilitation, governance and partnership building.

Always Possible and Elevate Partnerships came together to deliver public engagement for Care Without Carbon, the Sussex health and care system’s programme to reduce its environmental impact while protecting and improving care. Hosted by Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust, the programme wanted patients and carers to help shape how the NHS in Sussex reaches net zero.

In 2026 we set up and ran the Sussex NHS Climate Panel, a deliberative panel of around 20 patients and carers that met five times over six months, supported by focus groups and pop-up conversations. Elevate Partnerships led the evidence review, engagement design and facilitation, and chaired the programme’s advisory group. We managed the programme, supported recruitment and the panel’s running, and reviewed how the deliberative process had worked for the Care Without Carbon team. Over the sessions, panel members moved from everyday concerns about waste to more systemic thinking about what it takes to make sustainable healthcare work for everyone, with insight now informing the programme’s priorities.