No, this isn’t Blue Care meets Reg Grundy for a rollicking tongue-in-cheek drama.
As a consumer of things, it’s always interesting to understand the thinking behind the stuff that we are being offered to consume. Why do manufacturers make things the way they do; why do we do things a particular way? What’s the thinking behind the design of an innovative new development? It’s no different when it comes to policies and practices of governments and institutions. While sometimes the answer is, there isn’t much thinking, these days there usually is a reason behind particular policy directions. As potential beneficiaries or casualties of those policies, it usually helps to understand where they are coming from.
This goes for the recent and continuing changes to the aged care system in Australia.
Every field, every industry, every sphere of interest has its trends and buzzwords and the new one in aged care services is ‘co-production’.
No, this isn’t Blue Care meets Reg Grundy for a rollicking tongue-in-cheek drama. ‘Co-production’ is an approach to designing and delivering care and support services where ‘consumers’ (that’s us) are equal partners with the service providers. It’s a close cousin of that other buzzword, ‘consumer-directed care’ and, according to a report in the aged care industry publication, Australian Ageing Agenda, it’s an approach that is gaining ground.
The thinking behind the co-production approach is that governments and policy makers should not be making assumptions about older people’s opinions and needs. It’s a big shift really, since most commonly in the past (and indeed even now) consumers have been pretty much passive recipients of a pre-determined menu of services. [You must watch the wonderful, short animated video about this too].
Instead, ‘consumers’ or ʻclientsʼ or ‘users of services’ become active partners in designing services that they believe will work for them.
The concept of co-production – also sometimes referred to as co-design or co-creation – in a formal sense comes most recently out of the UK where the approach has been developed and progressively implemented in a range of social service contexts in recent years.
In our local context, it got a big boost from a series of workshops conducted around Australia last year by a visiting UK co-production expert, Madeline Cooper-Ueki, from the UK’s National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTi). Cooper-Ueki’s visit was sponsored jointly by Council on the Ageing (COTA) Australia and CommunityWest, a community services policy and education-focused organisation.
Last week Community West announced a new national project called Step Forward: Create Better Together, to pilot the use of co-production principles and techniques among 10 community aged care organisations. Funded by the Department of Social Services, and in partnership with COTA Australia, the aim of the project is to support the aged care services sector to move beyond merely ‘consulting’ with consumers to ‘co-producing’ with them.
So what does it mean for us consumers?
Time will tell (this is a pilot after all) but the results have been positive in the UK and the approach certainly make sense if you are the recipient of the care.
In fact, for some of the really progressive, quality driven aged care service providers, co-production is no-doubt already part of the approach and an eventual shift in government policy (which is likely, as happened with ‘consumer directed care’ which is now legislated) will simply validate and formalise their approach.
But given the level of procrastination, avoidance and even occasionally denial of the ‘consumer directed care’ approach from some laggardly aged care service providers, it will be a work in progress for some time.
As consumers, it always helps to be informed and you can learn more about this approach and your rights generally under consumer directed care by visiting the Government’s My Aged Care website.
Are there questions you have about aged care and support services?
