Get involved in designing the National Care Service (NCS)

It’s likely that everyone in Scotland will be involved in the National Care Service at some point in their lives. You may need to use its services or have family or friends who do, or you may work in it.

We want to have a National Care Service that best fits the needs of everyone in Scotland.

To do that, we need to hear from people directly. This is what co-design means – working alongside the people who use and deliver health and social care services, and the organisations which represent them, to ensure we get a future organisation that works for everyone.

We’re now looking for people to help us with this process, to understand the changes that are needed and checking these changes are possible and practical.

We want to hear from you.

Applications are now open to take part in this process and there are two ways to participate. If you're living in Scotland and have views on how you think the future NCS should look, you can apply to take part in our Lived Experience Experts Panel.

If you represent an organisation in Scotland with an interest in health and social care, you can apply to take part in our Stakeholder Register.

The first things we will be considering are:

• information sharing to improve care support
• keeping care support local
• realising rights and responsibilities
• making sure my voice is heard
• valuing the workforce

Do not worry if these topics do not feel relevant to you and your experience. We will announce new topics in the future that you might be more interested in, and you’ll be able to join the panel at any time to take part in co-design activities.

Find out more in alternative formats:

• Getting involved in designing the National Care Service: easy read
• Getting involved in designing the National Care Service: audio 
• Getting involved in designing the National Care Service: audio (easy read)
• Getting involved in designing the National Care Service: BSL (easy read)
• Getting involved in designing the National Care Service: BSL

Other ways to get involved
The Lived Experience Experts Panel is just one way you can get involved in co-design. There are other ways too.

In the future, we’ll be reaching out to specific groups to take part in co-design – for example:

• children, young people and their families
• care experienced people
• young carers
• children with disabilities

For this reason, we’re not asking children (under the age of 18) to join the Lived Experience Experts Panel right now. Instead, we will organise specific events for children, young people and their families. We will do this by working with organisations that represent different groups of young people. This will help us make sure we reach as many different groups as we can.

We’ll also arrange the events in a way that best suit the group we’re working with - to make sure everyone feels comfortable and we can get the best out of the work.

Lived Experience Experts Panel

The Lived Experience Experts Panel is a group of people who will help to design the NCS by taking part in different kinds of research and design activities.

This means taking part in things like:

• a survey
• being interviewed
• helping us come up with ideas about what changes we might make
• helping us understand what our evidence is telling us
• helping us understand if the suggestions made will bring about the changes needed within health and social care that people have asked for

You can decide whether or not you want to join in with any of the research and design activities you are contacted about. We are grateful for any help you can give us with this important work.

The panel will be made up of people who have real experience of using or providing social care support in Scotland. Your expertise will help shape the future NCS and make sure we're working with the right people, in the right way.

If you would like to join the Lived Experience Experts Panel, you can apply online.

If you need help to fill in your application, please contact our helpline, which is free to call from mobile phones and landlines:

Phone
0808 196 1507

The helpline will be staffed during the following times:

• Tuesday 9am to 12pm 
• Thursday 1pm to 4pm

The helpline will not be open on bank holidays.  

You can email LEEP@gov.scot and ask for someone to call you back if you need support with the application when the helpline is not open.

Please only use this email address to get in touch about the Lived Experience Experts Panel.

If you would like to get in touch about anything else to do with the National Care Service, email NCScommunications@gov.scot.

In your application, we’ll ask questions about:

• you and your experience of social care in Scotland
• which of our initial set of design topics you are interested in

You can apply to join the panel at any time.

We need to make sure the panel includes a wide and varied range of people with different backgrounds and experiences to make sure this work represents everyone. So after you apply we will either contact you to offer you a place on the panel now or to let you know that we will be in touch at a later date with further opportunities to join. We will be adding topics and opportunities to get involved on a regular basis over the coming months and years.

Read the privacy notice about how your data will be used and protected

Read the privacy notice in alternative formats:

• National Care Service privacy notice: easy read
• National Care Service privacy notice: BSL
• National Care Service privacy notice: audio

National Care Service Stakeholder Register

It’s also important that delivery partners and other key stakeholder organisations are involved in planning and developing the NCS.

That’s why we’re creating a National Care Service Stakeholder Register – so we can build an understanding of which organisations want to take part in future co-design activities.

We have already been working with lots of organisations on the development of the National Care Service up to now, but we still want to hear from both existing partners and new ones.

To register your organisation's interest in joining the NCS Stakeholder Register, fill in an online application.

In this application form, we will ask you about your organisation’s experience of social care in Scotland. Then we’ll contact you to let you know when activities open to stakeholders are coming up.

If you need help to fill in your application, please contact our helpline, which is free to call from mobile phones and landlines:

Phone
0808 196 1507

The helpline will be staffed during the following times:

• Tuesday 9am to 12pm
• Thursday 1pm to 4pm

Read the privacy notice about how your data will be used and protected

Read the privacy notice in alternative formats:

• National Care Service privacy notice: easy read
• National Care Service privacy notice: BSL
• National Care Service privacy notice: audio

Thank you for your interest.