Working in Co-Production
We have been developing a co-production toolkit as part of our Involvement toolkit. Co-production is a way of working that involves people who use health and care services, carers and communities in equal partnership. It engages groups of people, including those with lived experience, at the earliest stages of service design, development and evaluation.
Co-Production toolkit part 1: Supporting Information
Co-Production toolkit part 2: Summary research report
Co-Production toolkit part 3: The principles of co-production
Involvement Toolkit
The ICB has developed a toolkit as a practical guide to help colleagues in the North East and North Cumbria to involve people in their work. The easy-to-follow guide includes advice, techniques and templates that can be used with a variety of audiences and topics to engage meaningfully and improve the quality of services.
The people and communities we serve should be involved in all parts of the commissioning cycle to ensure we make the right decisions when it comes to the future of the healthcare services they use.
The toolkit covers engagement, when the ICB is developing relationships and partnerships so that the voice of local people and partners is heard, and consultation, which refers to the statutory duty for NHS organisations to consult with overview and scrutiny committees (OSCs), patients, the public and stakeholders when considering proposals for a substantial variation of how local health services are provided.
ICB staff work alongside members of the Involvement team to plan, research, engage, analyse, monitor and report back on involvement projects, with full transparency. On our website you can find details of our past and current engagements to see examples of the work we deliver.
We promote a range of engagement methods when involving local people, including surveys, focus groups, co-production events, public meetings and events, pop up stalls, working with people with lived experience, community outreach, interviews and our citizens’ panel.
Our aspiration is to ‘be the best at getting better’ and so it is essential that the North East and North Cumbria is a place where continuous improvement and learning is at the heart of all we do and the way in which we work. We have therefore established a Learning and Improvement Community Network with a focus on quality improvement.
The Involvement toolkit is a mechanism for ensuring staff strive for excellence and are able to feedback learning through the Learning and Improvement Community Network. This enables our staff to lead, persuade and move forward, with the patient voice at the heart of what we do, so that improvement becomes a value and not just a behaviour.
If you have any questions about the toolkit, or how we engage with our people and communities, please email necsu.icb.involvement@nhs.net.