What is co-production?

Co-production is how we work together to care for patients and service users.

It means using everyone’s knowledge and experience to help people recover. This includes patients, service users, staff,  carers, volunteers and others.

Co-production is about working as equals. We all use our strengths to make things better for everyone. Every person has something to offer.

We listen to everyone because each person's experience is important.

Our Co-production Network (est. Jan 2022)

At St Andrew's, co-production is more than just a buzzword. Our Co-production Network consists of service users, staff and peer support workers. The Network meet regularly to share ideas, discuss projects and any barriers that are stopping people from getting involved.

To contact the Co-production Network, please email: co-production@stah.org

Our co-production pledge

The co-production pledge makes sure patients have an equal say in their care. Everyone at St Andrew's Healthcare is being asked to take the pledge which has been created as part of our Co-production Framework.

The pledge was developed by the charity’s Co-production Network, who wanted to create a joined-up approach across the charity for co-production.

Dr Inga Stewart, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Co-chair of the Co-production Network said: “Co-production is an important part of how we work with people. It is about recognising and using everyone’s diverse knowledge, experience and perspective - whether they be an inpatient, community service user, staff member, carer, a volunteer or another individual.

“Co-production is a set of values that ensures equal partnership where people actively work together by making the best use of their strengths to find ways of doing things that benefit everyone. It’s an approach that all health organisations need to adopt.

“It is about a change in culture from ‘doing to’ to ‘doing with’, where we automatically make decisions about someone’s care with them. We need a default position where we genuinely share power and we respect the person’s expertise on the subject of themselves and their loved ones from their own living experience. We’ve therefore gone one step further and created a framework which all staff and patients can follow.  

It shows that as a charity, we recognise that every person may have something different to give; we listen to all of our people, because we know everyone has an important experience to share.”

The framework can be found by all patients and staff at St Andrew’s. It includes clear plans and priorities for what good co-production practice looks like, and underpins everything we do.

For information about our Co-production Framework, click here. News about our pledge has also reached the media! Read more in the NR Times and Northampton Chronicle and Echo.

The St Andrew's Co-production Framework

Our Co-production Framework has been co-created based on workshops with experts-by-experience and staff. The framework provides a joined-up approach to co-production. 

The Framework document includes the principles of successful co-production:

•   Tackling unequal power dynamics
•   Challenging knowledge hierarchy
•   Ensuring more equitable partnerships
•   Ensuring there is equal give and take in the process
•   Promoting mutual growth
•   Reflecting on all aspects of the co-production process
•   Enabling flexible ways of interacting and working

As well as examples of engagement, co-design and full-scale co-production.

An Easy Read version is also available.

Within this document you can find the Ladder of co-production . Need an easy read version of the Ladder of co-production? You can find it here

If you have any questions about co-production then you can contact our team on co-production@stah.org 

People living with dementia as co-researchers in the co-production of care planning

Our very own Inga Stewart, in her role of Clinical Research Fellow, is leading and co-ordinating on a research programme about co-producing research into care planning. This blog has been co-written by all members of the research programme steering group, including people with living, and learnt experience of dementia.

This is a co-produced project with people with dementia involved. For us as a research group, co-production means working together to make things better for everyone. It is sponsored by St Andrew’s Healthcare in partnership with the Alzheimer’s Society. We want people living with dementia, and their care partners, to be able to create better outcomes for themselves through co-producing their own care plans. We are developing a new toolkit to help care teams involve people with dementia in writing their own care plans.

A brilliant example of why co-production is so important