Co-production is becoming increasingly relevant and manifest within healthcare; planning, design, implementation, review, evaluation and of course research. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and other major national funders of health and social care research require patient and public involvement (PPI) to be meaningful; non-tokenistic, integrated throughout protocols and involving people with relevant lived experience and diversity. The ethical argument for people to be involved in service change is clear; ‘nothing for us without us’, but PPI and co-production can offer so much more than a means of attaining moral virtue. People with real world experience of health conditions and services, including the family and friends of patients and other carers, form a missing piece of the informational jigsaw required to be able to piece together and complete the picture of what may be the best option for service change in terms of meeting the needs of the end user and other stakeholders. Co-production has been positioned as the gold standard for PPI; requiring equitable power-sharing in decision and other processes related to planning and assessing options for service change. There is no one blueprint for what might work best in a given set of circumstance in enacting co-production. Trial and error has been evidenced as the best way to learn, and no one should be afraid of not getting co-production right every time. We all live and learn. However, much can be learnt from instances where co-production has been carried out. This report provides many valuable and informative cases of co-production in action and what has been achieved as a consequence of enabling people with lived experience to be equitable team members.
Clinical Senate
South East
Date:
08/02/2024
Status:
Completed
Types of Work:
Clinical Advice