Reflections on strategies to help service users in co-production to work with data to improve services.

Background: The policy drive to integrate health and social care data to improve services is hampered by data fragmentation and low digitalisation, and privacy concerns when collecting and sharing data. However, ‘big data’ looks for trends and generalisations which may overshadow some of the more individualised person-centred data of service users, particularly for those from marginalised groups.

Alongside this drive for more and better data, there is a call for greater use of co-production in developing services to ensure that people’s voices are heard, and for change to deliver the service improvements that people want. However, often this falls short of meaningful co-production, with many people suggesting this tends to be a ‘tick box’ exercise.

 

Approach: The harnessing of ‘big data’ to plan and develop services is often seen as a specialist domain, and not always accessible to the ‘lay’ person. Here we present learnings from one of the IMPACT Network projects which considered the Use of Data to Improve Services. IMPACT (IMProving Adult Care Together) is a UK implementation centre model, funded by ESRC and NIHR, working to embed research and evidence in practice through co-production with a diverse range of stakeholders. This is based on the Blended Learning Network methodology.

 

Results: Drawing on examples from a Network looking at Using Data to Improve Services as a vehicle for enacting change, we show how co-production can be useful for two-way knowledge exchange to help create sustainable change. We highlight some of the difficulties in sourcing appropriate and relevant evidence. We also discuss some of the strategies we have used to help translate complex evidence from research, practice and lived experience, into more digestible forms for non-expert diverse stakeholders to be able to engage effectively in co-production and be more than just a ‘tick box’.