Co-production is the key to Health and Social Care Integration

By Laura Able, SCIE Co-production Network member 

Laura Able 

Since the 1990s there was a general agreement between professionals, politicians and people who use services and their carers that an integrated, joined up, often called “seamless” service is needed to create the best health and social services for everyone.  People don’t usually mind who provides services; they just want good quality. 

Is this a Change in Name Only?

This year the Health Department became the Department of Health and Social Care but is this change in name only?  I want to suggest the barriers to this integration can only be eroded successfully, if co-production is intrinsic to the process at every level and this is the only way that services can truly integrate.  Put simply this because services exist because of the service user.  Therefore services need to revolve around the service user and not the other way round.  A co-productive process is not about reducing cost for systems it is about creating better one.

User and Carer Involvement

Ealing User Involvement Project where I worked in the 1990s sent representatives to all types of meetings where professionals discussed services and made decisions; strangely enough when we were included there did seem to be improvements in communication between the different agencies.  

The assumed theoretical background and often differences of approach and language had to be reconsidered when the user/carers were there this enabled everyone to talk to each other more openly.  Moreover, service users and carers often hold the establishment to account and challenge if for example, the viewpoint of people who are often not heard is neglected.  

Our Life Journey

Perhaps this is a rose tinted view of the past, there wasn’t true equality or power sharing but there were still some real benefits.  User involvement and co-production recognises that everyone has skills and assets; it demystifies professionalism and reinstates the fact that we will all need good quality services for some reason, at some point, in our lives.  To provide a truly integrated health and social care system, which follows our life journey, we must incorporate at every stage of development diverse groups of service users and carers to co–plan, co–design, co–commission and co-deliver services.