Associate Article: Examining Co-production Part 1 – The Right Circumstances

As a long-time advocate and practitioner of the involvement of people in delivering health and care services, I have recently noticed how often research, projects and services need to re-learn the same lessons which I thought were well known, particularly around the area of co-production. There seems to only be an informal sharing of good practice and experience in health and social care, so I undertook to review what is available, to see how we might get good practice to gain traction and become normal practice.

Although not a formal literature review, I used a wide range of sources I have gathered over the last three years as I have stumbled across them, together with a search of material available online, for example via the Public Experience Library. I chose to focus on information from the last 10-15 years, which I assumed builds on previous material and learning. I only reviewed information on co-production in providing wider services, not in individuals co-producing their own care and support.

The Role of Co-production

Co-production is a term used more widely in health and social care than ever before, and whilst there are lots of examples of co-production in action, it remains challenging to find examples that fulfil everyone’s interpretation of what good co-production looks like. A simple internet search for ‘NHS Co-production examples’ returns sites that show positive patient involvement projects, but that would not meet the criteria for co-production set out in this article.

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