Co-designing public services in Buckinghamshire

In recent years local authorities have been encouraged to embed a culture of engagement and community empowerment in the development and delivery of services. This process of involving the community in decision-making at all levels is set to bring about a transformation in the relationship between community, elected members and authorities.

Engine was asked to facilitate the development of a best practice methodology for the engagement of local authorities, elected council members and service providers and users. The methodology, which came to be known as SHAPE: Services Having All People Engaged, was modelled through a live programme of work that concentrated on residents of the county in the 50+ age range.

One of the key characteristics of co-design projects is their complexity when it comes to managing expectations and establishing objectives that will be focused enough to yield tangible results, and flexible enough to keep people with different interests engaged. Our project began with the broad intention of improving access to transport and health for elderly residents of Bucks. However, no specific service was identified that would address this issue.

Shape Workshop

The project involved a concentrated programme of work over a period of 4 months. The main activities took place during and in-between a set of workshops that involved a wide group of participants. The whole process involved nearly 40 people from county and district councillors and officers, health professionals, voluntary groups and community representatives.

To begin with, participants were set the challenge of going on a bus journey to one of the local hospitals and to document their experiences in words and pictures. This was the starting point for a workshop dedicated to exploring the problems and opportunities from the users perspective.

From the start, elected members, residents, officers and service providers had to work together, having equal status within the group, to generate ideas and arrive at consensus. Once agreement was reached within the group, the task of designing a service that would meet everyoneҒs needs desires could begin.

HealthConnect ‘mock ups’

The outcomes were twofold. HealthConnect is a service development proposal designed to improve access to health and social care services in Buckinghamshire. It is a response to the way in which people with limited accessibility, especially in rural areas, find journeys to and from the doctors particularly stressful, time-consuming and expensive.

The second is the Shape methodology for people-centred service innovation, which can be downloaded here.

The project had some immediate impacts, with Wycombe District Council, Chiltern District Council, Oxford City Council, Bucks Primary Care Trust, and Wycombe Hospital Trust all integrating journey planning information as part of their websites.