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

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. This builds on The Promise Design School, delivered in partnership with The Promise Scotland.

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

• design training and support for 11 Health and Social Care Partnership Teams who are working on the ‘Getting It Right For Everyone’ pathfinders project, which sits with the Scottish Government Care and Wellbeing Portfolio. The teams have undertaken 5 days of training between January and April, with additional targeted support, to undertake initial engagement activities in their communities. Journey maps from pathfinder teams will be shared in June, with a national sense-making phase to take place over summer. The full co-design process, including idea generation and prototyping, will be complete in November.
• design training and support for the National Care Service programme teams and participants. This includes onboarding sessions for the participants of the experience panel and stakeholder register participants. Support will be provided to participants specific to the co-design activities across the programme. The formation of a ‘design champions’ group of senior leaders responsible for the NCS co-design themes includes training and reflective practice to create the conditions for co-design and meaningful participation.

Guidance, tools, templates, case studies etc are being developed as this work progresses.

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) and Stakeholder Register opened for applications in September 2022. This was specifically to support co-design activities on the National Care Service (NCS) programme. The Office of the Chief Designer (OCD) offered ‘Welcome Sessions’ to all members. The sessions ran in November and December 2022. In total, 12 sessions were held in November and December 2022. This included: 

• 9 sessions for LEEP, which 184 people attended
• 3 for SR, which 126 people attended 

A total of 310 people took part, which is half of LEEP and SR members. A summary report was produced based on what we heard, with recommendations on how to make sure people can take part meaningfully in co-design activities and what support might be needed (this ranges from accessibility requirements to recognising and addressing issues around power and influence).

This report was shared with the participation oversight group the Social Covenant Steering Group (SCSG), the Key Stakeholder Group (KSG), as well as the teams leading the programmes of work within the Scottish Government. 

The Office of the Chief Designer has an ongoing programme to develop and deliver training and support for anyone taking part in co-design activities across the identified NCS themes.

The longer term aim is that these panels can be extended for use more widely across Health and Social Care programmes, and governance arrangements will be reviewed and updated once this is agreed.

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

A co-design maturity matrix has been developed by the design team. This was shared with the civic society group at the April meeting where feedback was sought, and this process is ongoing. This tool will form the basis of baseline assessments with organisations or partnerships, and will help to prioritise the production of new guidance and materials. An evaluation framework is also being developed that will capture feedback from specific co-design projects, which will form an ongoing programme of improvement. This will be shared with the civic society group for feedback when a draft is ready.

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

We have made significant progress in clarifying the role of the civic society group in relation to this commitment with close alignment with the co-design activity taking place in health and social care. However, capacity and pressure on civic society members has meant that attendance at meetings and engagement in decision-making has not been consistent or sustained. The result is that TOR are yet to be agreed and decisions will need to be made about the membership of the group and possible alternative ways of engaging civic society in this work. The civic society co-lead will drive forward next steps with this activity and report at future meetings.

Status

In progress.