"I think there’s a great opportunity for us to get a better understanding of the lived experience of our service users, because I think we’ve made a lot of assumptions about them in the past."
The National Drug Rehabilitation Framework (2010) and the National Drug Strategy (2017-2025) highlight co-production as the cornerstone for which addiction services should operate. Not only is co-production seen as best practice, it is also key in achieving successful outcomes for service users who avail of addiction services.
Service user engagement or ‘co-production’ has been part of social care services since the 1970’s and has a strong evidential base. Working in a co-produced manner means service users are fully involved in the development of their care plan and pathway to recovery and beyond. Additionally, co-production invites service users to provide suggestions on how to improve the service through feedback sessions, participation in support groups and talking with new service users about treatment. Co-production also involves service user participation, at a wider strategic level of planning, reviewing and development of services, in partnership with all agencies.
In 2019, the Department of Health (DoH) allocated funding to the Local and Regional Drug and Alcohol Taskforces (DATFs) to develop and implement 14 strategic initiatives, which have co-production as a central theme. Using an action research approach, Genio are working with the DATFs to surface the implementation challenges and opportunities and highlight areas of synergy, in order to support DATFs to progress the co-production approach.