Co-Production: Where are we now?

Tuesday 16th of July 2024

Co-production is deeply ingrained in the support we provide at Avenues. It is crucial to us that the people we support and their families are involved in the services we provide, and that they are empowered to make decisions based on their care. 

For this year’s co-production week, we’re pleased to highlight many areas where we have progressed, and where we are heading in the future.  

Here’s a snapshot of our recent commitments to the development of co-production at Avenues:

1. Co-production awareness days, workshops and training courses are being held across the charity to keep all our staff up to speed on the latest developments. We are also planning dedicated ‘co-production days’ for 2025.
2. We have launched a new internal co-production policy and procedure, that has been created alongside the people we support and their families.
3. New co-production awareness training is now in place, which is compulsory for all our employees.
4. A total of 53 people we support are now members of local engagement groups, and we will be setting up a further four local engagement groups this year. 
5. In our Family Matters group this year, we have discussed family members being involved in recruitment, offered input into the family portal to our members so that they can access care records, introduced a Family Charter, and much more! 
6. Our co-production panel has now met on 4 occasions and those involved include both the people we support and family members.
7. We have recently started recruiting Quality Checkers (we have 11 now!), who will be supported by our Co-Production Lead to audit our services. Our Quality Checkers will be family members and people we support, and we have designed an accessible audit tool for them to use. 
8. Externally, we are working with NHS England to run focus groups and producing videos on the impact of Covid 19, as well as running our own focus groups on ‘What Good and Outstanding Look Like’ for the Supported Living coalition which was set up by CQC. We are also members of the Supporting People Well group set up by CQC and have been working with other providers, Care England and supported people on easy read documents, and legislation. 

We know that there is still more to be done to progress co-production, both at Avenues and in the wider care sector. We are wholeheartedly committed to contributing to this progression, and to continuing to develop our services alongside the people whose opinions matter most. 

More information 

You can find out more about co-production at: https://www.scie.org.uk/co-production/ and: https://www.thinklocalactpersonal.org.uk/