Engaging people in adult social care and co-production: what’s the best evidence?

The voice and experience of people who use services in shaping and delivering adult social care has long been a preoccupation of mine. It’s so obvious a way of working and understanding to me that even now I’m bemused and confuddled more than I should be by how ubiquitous good engagement and co-production isn’t.

Anyway, I’ve been lucky enough to be asked to write a bit about this for research in practice for adults (ripfa) as part of a forthcoming collection they’re producing. The focus is on what the evidence says about how properly involving people in the design and delivery of adult social care makes a difference (in whatever way and at whatever level).

As something of a geek I have a pretty good sense of what the best bits and sources of evidence are, but one person’s approach for this type of thing is never as good as that of the crowd. I was therefore hoping colleagues might share with me any evidence or practice they think it’s worth highlighting on engagement / co-production.

Any information is useful; if people could share any evidence in particular about the following, though, then that would be particularly great!

• How do different groups want to be involved in social care delivery and design?
• Which groups are at most risk of not having their voices heard, and how can we ensure they are included?
• What should we do when people can’t, or don’t want to be involved in their own social care?
• What’s the best evidence around on the involvement of individuals in their own care planning or assessment and general person-centred planning approaches?

Though the focus of the work is on adult social care, evidence is limited to just this area: stuff from the world of health is as useful as anything from social care.

Feel free to share via the comments here, via Twitter (I’m @rich_w) or via email (rich DOT watts AT ndti DOT org DOT uk).

Thanks in advance for anything anyone is able to share. As always, I’ll share back what is produced as a result of this work, as well as a collection of the best resources found and shared on this topic.

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