in light of the new health and social care bill

[Lucie Stephens]

an interesting article written by Becky Malby, director of the centre for innovation in health management at the university of leeds outlining why co-production is the real reform needed for health and social care.

see what you think, NHS reform: a radical approach through co-production?

 

and I've copied a couple of neat summary paragraphs below;

 

Three different types of relationship are competing for dominance in the NHS reforms, each reflecting a different political ideology.

The first is patient as consumer, with choice of service but no responsibility for it. This leads towards market mechanisms, and the risk that the most vulnerable will lose out. The second is users and communities as owners of a service that spends their taxes. This is localism – autonomous local health bodies directly accountable to the community.

The third relationship is where users are co-producers of the NHS. This is the truly radical option. Patients have responsibility and shared ownership, the expert model falls away and the very boundaries of the NHS are in question.

The bill itself provides little clarification, alluding to all these relationships in an incoherent muddle. But on the ground, more and more NHS staff are beginning to see the need for co-production.