Co-production,  the best (if most elusive) version of ‘patient involvement’ is, rightly,  gaining ground as an idea.

Get your Co-production Model here!

So it’s great news that the excellent Co-production Model, recently launched by the Coalition for Collaborative Care (C4CC) is available for anyone to use and share. Working in true co-productive style, with dozens of partners inside and outside the NHS, the result is a model of simplicity, sense and plain English. And – even better – it isn’t a report or a thesis: it‘s on a  single A4 page! 

In a meagre 300 or so words* it explains:

• what co-production is,
• five ‘values and behaviours’ that need to be present in an organisation to make co-production possible,
• seven steps to implement it.

It has already been received with huge enthusiasm in several places where it’s been presented, which seems to be to reflect the reality of where we are with co-production – that the argument ‘for’ has largely been won, but that people aren’t sure how to do it, or where to start.

The rightness of doing co-production

In fact, there is a growing acknowledgement that co-production is simply the right thing to do, both for people who use services and for their families. But it also makes operational sense. This is true for lots of reasons, but here are the three biggies (and some slogans!).

First, it’s better for people when they are  actively involved in their care. After all, people with long-term conditions are probably best-placed to know what services they want and need, and they can contribute massively to their proper design and planning.

Slogan alert #1: Plan with us, not for us. 

Second, you get better outcomes. Individually, patients will understand more, ‘comply’ more, and be healthier. At a strategic level, when systems and processes are designed with users, you get to the right solution quicker, and with fewer iterations. Then, once in place, the new products and services work better, faster, and with fewer revisions.

Slogan alert #2: We know things you don’t know; we see things you don’t see.

Slogan alert #3: As ‘expert advisory groups’ go, if people who use services didn’t exist, you’d have to invent us.

Third, it’s better for health care professionals. Usually a bit scared and sceptical at first, the experience of the C4CC Co-production group, and hundred of other ‘users’ working with professionals around the country, is that once professionals have co-produced properly, they are bitten by the bug, and become serious advocates of the methodology. Pathways work better, systems work, and job satisfaction goes up.

Slogan alert #4: Co-production helps us to prioritise, and that’s better for us all.

How to do it and where to start

The interest shown in discussions about co-production, and early reactions to the Co-production Model, suggest that there is a huge number of professionals out there who really want to work using co-production, but aren’t sure how to go about it. (Although the oft-cited difficulty in ‘finding patients’, frankly seems a bit weird to me…)

Co-production is the easiest thing in the world to do badly, and really hard to get right. But the basic principles aren’t difficult, and the Co-production Model suggests a methodology that is simple and straightforward.

It’s a great place to start. And it’ll be followed at the end of summer with some case studies that will help further to address some of the practicalities.

The chances are you won’t get it right the first time, but don’t let that stop you.

Slogan alert #5: Don’t wait until the plan is perfect. Make a start, and fix it as you go along.

And here it is, to download and share!

Download the The Co-production Model here. Or read more (and download it) at the Coalition for Collaborative Care’s website.

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* Beaten into a cocked hat by the Gettysburg address, one of the finest examples of concise writing ever produced, at just 272 words. We did try.