Co-production

Any service improvement or clinical model of care is greatly enhanced by the contribution of all those involved in development, delivery and receipt of services.

Service-users, their families, frontline staff and the community services that provide support on discharge from secure care all bring their own wisdom, experience and ideas.

To harness this range of perspectives, IMPACT Co-production Forums bring together expertise from the nine provider partner organisations as well as those with first-hand experience of secure care services and their family members, community services, prison services and the voluntary sector. Together, we are able to identify what works well and what could work better in the context of the agreed aims and objectives of the IMPACT provider collaborative.

Our co-production activity and processes are open and transparent, underpinned by a shared vision and values, which we developed together.

In addition to our ongoing involvement with service-users and co-production through representation on our workstreams, we hold large co-production forums throughout the year so our workstream leads can share their ideas and our stakeholders can respond with suggestions of what sounds beneficial, what else could be developed and what might have been forgotten.

We particularly design these events to encourage a full contribution from ‘Experts by Experience’ – those who are or have previously been users of services and who understand from first-hand experience what is needed to improve pathways, service models and the user experience.

Our schedule of co-production forums has recently been suspended due to restrictions on large gatherings due to COVID-19. Details of future events will be available here once confirmed.

To ensure on-going co-production during this time our Lived Experience Co-ordinator continues to make direct contacts with service-users across the region and gather their feedback and experiences to inform service development.

At the end of July 2020, The Partnership Board approved an overarching strategy for the widespread involvement of those with lived experience in the IMPACT programme. A working group has now been formed to focus on the mobilisation of that strategy, with the involvement leads from each of the partner organisations meeting regularly to progress a programme of including contributions and co-production at all levels by experts by experience.