Grieving: A barrier to efficient co-production?

By Kevin Minier, SCIE CO-production Steering Group member

I often encounter carers who are still grieving for the loss of the person they cared for and many who are grieving and angry regarding what they see as inadequate care and support from the health and social care services. They are also grieving for the impact their caring role has had on their dreams for themselves and their families.  Unresolved loss/grief can express itself in anger, fear and emotional instability.

In this hectic world we live in it seems that more and more people are just not getting the opportunity to grieve the loss of: A loved one; their dreams; their health and independence; their career. Faith and cultural background also have a significant impact on how people handle loss.

As a full-time carer, when my mother died it was not until after the admin was all dealt with that it really hit me that she was no longer with us – and only then did I have the time to grieve and support my father and family with their grief.  If I was in full-time employment I would already have been back at work and had little time to work through the loss.

'Unresolved hurts'

At carer forums and workshops I regularly witness carers who are still very angry about the inadequacy of the care and support they feel they received whilst caring, long term, for the person they have or are caring for.  More and more are threatening to ‘stop’ caring and leave it to the authorities to sort it all out. 

These ‘unresolved hurts’ can greatly impact the effectiveness of a co-production team. Everybody’s experience and view (service user, carer, professional or member of the public) is valid, however, in order to work together co-productively and have the ability to consider all viewpoints subjectively these hurts must not undermine the process.

Unresolved grief 

All loss needs time to grieve but also things like time to think, talk, build and re-build relationships – and time to heal. With people living longer, many are living with long-term conditions; and parents are often outliving their children as well as their spouses.  I believe that the increasing loneliness in our society today is often because of the outworking of unresolved grief and heartbreak; as well as resulting in the ever-increasing demand for health and social care services.

There is a critical need for access to person-centred tailored therapies for all members of the team. Professionals may be unable to share control of the process or the outcome due to their own experiences, conditioning, fears and hurts.  I would suggest this requires access to psychological therapies as well as a spiritual care team.

Effective co-production team members are very valuable and need to be trained, nurtured and retained; just like any member of our increasingly specialised workforce.