Adult social care coproduction approach

How Together for Better Care started

People in Barnsley told us they wanted to be involved in how care services are developed and delivered to meet local people’s needs.

In response to this, we developed our Think Local, Act Personal group in 2023, which has evolved and is now known as Together for Better Care.

Get involved with our Together for Better Care group

We welcome anyone who wants to make a difference to adult social care in Barnsley, whether you’ve accessed local care services, supported someone who has or are an unpaid carer.

By joining our Together for Better Care group, you’ll have a chance to attend events, participate in projects and connect with others who are passionate about improving care in Barnsley.

If you’re interested in joining or want to find out more, please get in touch with our team by emailing us at ASCQualityAssurance@barnsley.gov.uk and be part of our journey towards better care for all.

Why your involvement matters

By getting involved with our Together for Better Care group, you can help us to identify what’s already working well and where we can continue improving our support.

Your feedback and ideas are essential to creating real, lasting change, including how we can make local care services more accessible and responsive for everyone.

We’re really proud of our existing members and the role they play in shaping better care for everyone. Here’s what they’ve had to say about being part of Together for Better Care:

“We feel listened to. Our views and comments are taken into consideration, and that’s what co-production is all about.”

“I’m proud to be part of the Barnsley community, and it makes me feel valued to give something back. Helping to solve some of the problems turns the negative experiences into positives.”

How we have made a difference

Our Together for Better Care group provides opportunities for you to take part in discussions, share your experiences and help design better services for everyone in Barnsley. adult social care staff are available at each meeting to support you to be involved.

Here are some examples of projects the group has already been involved in:

• Shaping the development of our Initial Response Team. They play an important role in your care journey, being the first team you will speak to when you contact adult social care for support.

• Co-producing Barnsley’s annual Adult Social Care Local Account.

• Advising on what information is important to carers and how this should be accessed.

• Sharing a vision for future carer short breaks, based on their experiences and needs.

Why we need a framework

The Health and Care Act 2022 requires us to better understand the needs, experiences and aspirations of people and communities. The Act applies to a range of different organisations, including the NHS, social care services, councils and the community and voluntary sector.

These insights are then used to inform services and improve health and wellbeing.

Services have a responsibility to:

• understand and act on what matters to people

• show how they comply with legal requirements to involve the public

• provide the necessary resources to engage effectively

• collaborate with partners to prioritise people

• listen to and understand the local communities

The People at the Heart of Care white paper vision, published in December 2021, sets out a vision to put people first, centred around three objectives:

1. People have choice, control and support to live independent lives.

2. People can access outstanding quality and tailored care and support.

3. People find adult social care fair and accessible.

In Barnsley, we want everyone to have the best possible chance of enjoying life in good physical and mental health. Our adult social care services play a vital role in making sure local people experience high-quality care and support when they need it. To do this, we've developed the Barnsley Adult Social Care Working with People and Communities Framework.

What our framework does

Our framework provides adult social care staff with the principles, tools, and resources they need for effectively working with people and communities in Barnsley. This framework allows people’s experiences to be captured. We can then put them at the heart of what we do in our Place Health and Adult Social Care directorate.

Our expectations from practitioners working in adult social care

• Put the voices of local people and communities (including children and young people) at the centre of decision making and governance. This is at every level of the integrated care system.

• Start engagement early when developing plans and feedback to people and communities on how their engagement has influenced activities and decisions.

• Understand the needs, experiences and aspirations of your community for health and care, and engage with them to determine whether change is having the desired effect.

• Build relationships with excluded groups, especially those affected by inequalities.

• Work with Healthwatch and the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector as key partners.

• Provide clear and accessible public information about our vision, plans and progress to build understanding and trust.

• Use community development approaches that empower people and communities to connect to social action.

• Use co-production, insights and engagement to achieve accountable health and care services.

• Co-produce and redesign services and tackle system priorities in partnership with local people and communities.

• Learn from what works and build on the assets of all integrated care system partners. This includes networks, relationships, and activity in local places.

No matter the method used, adult social care practitioners will begin by understanding their communities' current needs and experiences. They will also collaborate with colleagues and partners who already have connections within the community.

We recognise that people and communities have knowledge, skills and experiences that can support physical and mental health. Adult social care practitioners aim to work with these people, recognising and building on the strengths within communities to support people’s health. This will allow us to create better services that meet people’s needs, improving their experiences and outcomes.

Our approach to engagement 

We're measuring the success of our framework by evidencing our work with the people whose lives we touch in our communities. This is an ongoing process of reflection and learning, applying new tools and approaches as they develop.

There is no 'one size fits all' approach to working with people and communities. Approaches vary depending on a programme’s context, objectives and scale, giving us flexibility to make sure our engagement really works for local people. The starting point for working with people and communities is listening to their priorities, concerns and challenges. From this, we design approaches with people that meet their needs.  It's important that we’re open and honest about what and how improvements can be made.

Here are some of the main ways we’re working with people to gather feedback:

Inform

Sharing information about proposed changes so people understand what they mean, including:

• Letters, emails or social media updates.

• Information on notice boards in local community facilities.

Consult

Asking for people’s opinions on one or more ideas or options, including:

• Formal public consultations to gather views and ensure they are considered accordingly in decision-making, including webinars, public meetings and surveys.

Engage

Listening to people to understand issues and discuss ideas for change, including:

• Focus groups or interviews.

• Citizens’ panels and deliberative engagement.

• Patient and public membership on decision making, committees and boards.

• Patient forums and advisory groups.

Co-design

Designing with people and using their ideas for the final approach, including:

• Service redevelopment tools such as experience-based co-design.

• Co-design sessions for people with lived and learnt experience.

Co-production

An equal partnership where people with lived and learnt experience work together with us from start to finish, including:

• Community development approaches including asset mapping, appreciative inquiry and community conversations.

Holding us to account

We're making sure of the following:

• Ensuring our practitioners have a universal understanding and approach to working with communities and gathering information on people’s priorities.

• Making gathering people’s views standard practice across our services.

• Including people with protected characteristics and those who aren't represented enough in the current evidence base, such as unpaid carers.

• Protecting staff time to gather people’s views.

• Striving to involve people with lived experience in identifying measurable outcomes as part of our evaluation process.

• Having skilled facilitators leading the co-production process, including evaluations. These facilitators listen, build relationships and support communication between different groups of stakeholders.

• Involving managers and leadership, providing support to measure the impact of involvement.

• Ensuring access needs are addressed and managed so that engagement is accessible to everyone.

• Providing feedback to people and communities on their participation in activities and actions that have resulted from asking for people’s views.

Our commitment

This framework has been designed to help everyone to continue improving and developing better practice skills for working with our communities.

The Barnsley Better Lives programme and the adult social care senior leadership team will monitor how well the framework is working.