This month (1 – 5 July) we celebrated National Co-Production Week – an annual event which promotes the power of working in equal partnership with the people who use services, carers and communities.

When we get co-production right, we are able to design and deliver health and care services which truly meet the needs of local people.

Led by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), the theme for this year’s #CoProWeek was ‘what’s missing?’. We were invited to look beyond the familiar and work harder to increase equality and diversity in co-production.

We need to address the gaps, spark new conversations and encourage the innovations that will make a real difference in our region.

Keen to learn more?

Here at Boost, we’re great advocates for this way of working and offer free training in community powered approaches.

Our ‘Working with Communities’ programme consists of 5 online workshops, all of which are designed to support you on your co-production journey.

Take a look at this video with Ashley Eaton (Learning and Improvement Officer here in the Boost team), who gives us a run-down of each of the ‘Working with Communities’ modules. Ashley tells us what each one covers, and what we can expect to learn:

To book your place on an upcoming ‘Working with Communities’ session, please click here…

Case study: Maternity services in North Cumbria – addressing unwanted variation and health inequalities

As part of this focus on National Co-Production Week, we wanted to re-share a co-production story that was captured as part of a 2021 CLIC Improvement Masterclasses.

In the video, Nicola Jackson (of the former North Cumbria CCG) described the work that she was involved in to begin to address unwanted variation and health inequalities in maternity care across North Cumbria. Co-production was key to this, helping health and care colleagues to really understand the local population:

Our top ten tips for co-production!

1. Get the community involved as soon as possible and maintain an ongoing conversation
2. Build on what already exists such as patient groups that are already established, community meetings already in place and use feedback from current surveys
3. Use community spaces such as community centres, libraries, community cafes, which are often more accessible and inclusive
4. Be open and honest with people, including the ‘tricky issues’
5. Value people’s time and input and ask what support they need
6. Focus on ‘doing things together’ – not just a tick box exercise
7. Listen more, broadcast less
8. Avoid jargon and acronyms
9. Involvement is messy and organic – develop it with people
10. Forethought not an afterthought!

You can find out more about co-production, and access an involvement toolkit via the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board’s website…

• About Boost
• Co-Production
• Community Services
• Equality Diversity and Inclusion
• Health Inequalities
• Hospital Services
• Quality Improvement
• Toolkits and Other Tools