Open Government action plan 2021 to 2025 - commitment 2: health and social care

Progress to December 2023

Commitment 2: health and social care

Milestone

Develop and deliver a first iteration of the ‘design school’ model in key health and social care areas, such as the delivery of the National Care Service.

Progress and next steps

The 'Design School' is the name given to the wrap around support and training that is offered to people with lived experience, stakeholder organisations and policy teams to work together on policy and service change.

Design school support is currently being delivered in two key areas in health and social care:

• the National Care Service (NCS) programme, which has committed to design with the people who access and deliver social care support and other relevant services
• the Getting It Right For Everyone (GIRFE) Pathfinder Project, in which Health and Social Care Partnership Teams have committed to co-design an adult practice model for health and social care by working with their service users as well as practitioners and staff

National Care Service design school

Progress

The National Care Service (NCS) is partnering with organisations that represent communities under-represented in the work so far. Support and guidance has been provided by the Office of the Chief Designer to ensure continuity in the approach. Co-design sessions started in October and are being led by the following organisations:

• Minority Ethnic Carers of People Project (MECOPP)

• Sacro
• Simon Community
• LGBT Health & Wellbeing
• Alzheimer’s Scotland

On 30 October, the National Care Service National Forum took place online and in-person at the Glasgow Science Centre. More than 250 people with lived experience of accessing social care support, unpaid carers, people who work in community health and social care support and other organisations joined to talk about the progress of the National Care Service.

Next steps

The remaining co-design sessions, analysis and communication of insights will continue into early 2024. Feedback and learning from the sessions will be incorporated into future work.

GIRFE design school

Progress

In October, the eight Health and Social Care Partnership pathfinder teams submitted ideas and concepts developed with service users and staff. A phase of ‘collaborative sense-making’ has taken place at a national level to help the teams work together to understand the data and the emerging themes. An in-person event was held in Dundee on 15 November and this is being followed by virtual sessions. This work is ongoing due to the volume of information shared.

Next steps

Next steps involve finalising the analysis of around 500 ideas and concepts developed through the co-design process. Once teams have had a chance to understand the data, priorities will be agreed so teams can start engagement planning for the next phase. Training and coaching support will be provided to the teams working on initiatives as they partner with services users and staff to prototype and test ideas. This will start with a training day in December and will continue into the new year as needs are identified.

The new Health and Social Care Partnership teams will be offered additional training as they join the programme at the prototyping stage. This will extend the reach of the cohort and enhance the evidence base for the national toolkit.

Training materials and guidance produced will be reviewed and updated in line with feedback.

Status

On schedule

Milestone 

Support the newly established Lived Experience Expert Panel and Stakeholder Register to meaningfully participate in decision-making within health and social care.

Progress and next steps

The Lived Experience Experts Panel (LEEP) is the main route to take part in the co-design of the National Care Service (NCS).

Progress

Participants taking part in the co-design activities with seldom heard communities are being encouraged to join the Lived Experience Experts Panel to learn about future co-design opportunities. All public engagement opportunities for the National Care Service programme are advertised to LEEP members on an ongoing basis.

In November, people with experience in social care within LEEP have joined co-design sessions for the ‘Valuing the Workforce’ theme. The final session will take place on 7 December.

A number of operational improvements have been put in place to support members. For example a monthly communication now goes out to all members of LEEP with updates about the programme, information on what has taken place and new opportunities to take part in co-design. This is shared in Easy Read format to make sure the information is accessible to everyone.

Next steps

Should the NCS Bill progress to Stage 2 then LEEP will again become the primary route for recruiting participants in the co-design activities required to support this stage of the bill.

Feedback and the ongoing programme of improvements will continue. LEEP remains open for new applications and discussions are underway to explore opportunities to open this up to further policy exploration areas. These are dependent on resourcing and staff being available to manage the process and provide the required level of support for participants.

Status

On schedule

Milestone

Develop and agree an approach to assessing impact and learning from co-design activities across health and social care.

Progress and next steps

The co-design maturity matrix is being developed to support teams to consider what good looks like for co-design, covering key criteria such as capacity and capability for co-design, senior sponsorship, and implementation of design decisions. This will form the basis of the evaluation frameworks to support teams to measure and improve their co-design activities.

Progress

No work has been undertaken on this in the current reporting period.

Next steps

The latest version of the co-design maturity matrix and the evaluation framework will be shared with the civil society group for feedback. The evaluation framework will also be shared with Analytical Services colleagues in Scottish Government.

Status

On schedule

Milestone

Continue to develop the remit and role of the civic society group to play an active and ongoing role as a critical friend, supporting the development and progress of co-design activity across health and social care.

Progress and next steps

Progress

It is proposed that the Third Sector Health and Social Care Collaborative take on the civil society group role. This is an opportunity to reach a diverse range of stakeholder organisations across the sector and reduce duplication. This group will be asked to act as critical friend on progress and to support the development of guidance, methods and tools. This will be tabled by the co-chair at the Collaborative’s meeting on Wednesday 6 December.

Next steps

If agreed the civil society co-lead and the Office of the Chief Designer will onboard the Collaborative to the Open Government Partnership action and milestones. There will be a verbal update on this at the next Open Government Partnership steering group.

Status

In progress