What is co-production and what does it mean for you?

Hildegard Dumper of People in Health West of England explains what co-production is and how it works. This is part of a series of blogs, where key players in Bristol’s health sector write about a health related subject of their choice. If you want to contribute, email [email protected].

You might have noticed there are a number of buzz words
currently flying around, the most common starting with the letters ’co-’;
co-produce, co-design and co-create. Even NHS England talks about co-design
(Five Year Forward View). I thought I would share with you my understanding
about these ‘co-‘ words, and what they mean for us.

The first thing we need to understand is that all these
‘co-‘ words describe an approach to working with the public which regards each
individual, regardless of their role, as having a valuable contribution to
make. Central to this approach are principles of reciprocity and equality. We
at the WEAHSN have committed ourselves to being guided by these principles and
working in a co-produced way.

There are a number of definitions of co-production. The
National Co-production Critical Friends defines it is ‘A relationship where
professionals and citizens share power to plan and deliver support together,
recognising that both have vital contributions to make in order to improve
quality of life for people and communities’.

The New Economic Foundation/ NESTA suggests co-production
is ‘delivering public services in an equal and reciprocal relationship
between professionals, people using services, their families and their
neighbours. Where activities are co-produced in this way, both services and
neighbourhoods become far more effective agents of change’

NHS England’s Citizen’s Assembly describes co-production as ‘service
users, or the public in general, working in partnership with service providers
or commissioners to jointly make decisions.’

So what does this mean for us in practice? There are a
number of things that need to be considered when deciding to work in a
co-produced way.

1. Decide which pieces of work are suitable for
   co-production and what can/ cannot be achieved by involving people in this way.
2. Identify the resources you have available:
   1. Staffing – who will be managing the project
   2. Funding – have you the resources to pay travel
      expenses and/or their time (see our Guide to Paying Expenses)
   3. Timing – involving people takes longer. What is
      your time-line?
   4. Identifying
      suitable people – what kind of selection process would be fair and appropriate?
3. Develop and agree
   with your public contributors a role description which clearly states the time
   commitment expected from them, the length of their involvement and payment
   details (a template role description is available).
4. Identify where power imbalances can exist and take steps
   to minimise them. For example don’t have meetings at a time that excludes
   public contributors from attending and from taking part in the background
   thinking and development of a project.
5. Work with a wide range of people, using different people
   for different pieces of work.

It has been shown that where genuine co-production has taken
place, it can deliver better outcomes, support better use of scarce resources
and improve the well-being of those involved – clearly a win/win situation for patients and the public, as well as health service providers.