Here’s some examples of co-production happening in Norfolk and Waveney

The Making it Real (MiR) Board is an independent group of disabled people and unpaid carers. It advises what good co-production is and how best to co-produce any changes. It helps to make sure that the right people are involved in plans early on. By working together in co-production with system partners like Norfolk County Council and the local NHS, the Making it Real Board aims to improve access to good quality services that are more personalised, easily navigated and meet the needs of people with disabilities effectively.

Making it Real recently launched some training for staff at Norfolk County Council.  You can read more about it here. Here are some ways you can find out more about the MiR Board:

• Twitter @MakingitRealNfk
• Facebook
• Webpage coming soon!

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust use co-production to work with service users, carers and families as part of their pledge to making sure everyone can have a say in how their care is delivered and how that could be improved. They recognise that people who use their services have unique knowledge and experience which plays a part in their own recovery and can improve services. You can find out more here.

Norfolk County Council has information about how they are supporting engagement and co-production on their website here. They also have a guide on best practice in co-production for practitioners and professionals who work with children and young people and their families in Norfolk. It is also useful for children, young people and families, to understand how Norfolk County Council, service partners and organisations should work with them.

Norfolk and Waveney ICS has chosen to place quality at the heart of how it plans, transforms, sustains and supports transformation of services. NWICS has been working on some projects that use co-production methods to work with people who use services and their carers to improve quality. You can find out more here.

Norfolk and Waveney ICS also worked on a co-production project with Carers Voice and Caring Together to develop and promote Carers Identity Passports and Carers Awareness training. You can find out more about the co-production project here. Any live opportunities from across our ICS will be advertised on the Live Projects page in the People and Communities Hub on this website.

Opening Doors is a user led charity for people with learning disabilities and runs the Health Experts group. We have eight Health Experts from across Norfolk and Waveney who have a learning disability and have long term health conditions.

We meet 10 times a year and as Experts By Experience and we are paid for our time. We are funded by the NHS Norfolk and Waveney ICB (Integrated Care Board). We prepare and chair our own meetings. We all have good and bad experiences of using health care services and it’s important to make our voices heard.

It’s important to us to be part of this group to help people with learning disabilities live a healthier and longer life. We invite health professionals and departments to our meetings to talk about health services and how we can make their services better with clear information, so people can make choices about their health. We want to all support health care services to work together in coproduction with us, we say nothing about us without us.

What we do:

• Making our voices heard
• We want to be listened to
• Working together
• Respecting each other
• We have expertise in Easy Read, we can advise and design.
• We represent across the County – all with different health conditions and lived experience
• We blend together as a whole
• We are involved in important projects about different health issues
• Research projects – we are taking the lead and supporting others to take part
• We are involved in interviewing for ICB (Integrated Care Board) staff
• We deliver training
• We invite people to our meetings to talk about health issues
• We co-produce from the blank canvas to the end – not joining the conversation halfway through.

The Integrated Care Academy (ICA), the first of its kind in the UK, is a partnership between University of Suffolk, Suffolk and North East Essex (SNEE) ICS, Suffolk County Council, Healthwatch Suffolk and others in the VCFSE sector. They have developed an ICA Co-production Hub to continue to listen to, learn from and work with, the people, organisations, charities and volunteers within the communities it serves.

The Norwich Institute of Healthy Ageing (NIHA) develops and implements effective strategies to promote sustained population behaviour change, in order to improve physical and mental wellbeing. Its’s aim is to “Add life to your years”. NIHA have developed a co-production partnership which is made up of 17 representatives from statutory, voluntary and academic organisations working in the healthy ageing arena. The aim of the Partnership is to bridge the gap between research and practice to facilitate co-production, as well as ignite research ideas and initiatives to support healthy ageing. Co-production increases the chances that our research reaches people who can benefit the most and influences practice and policy.

Rethink Mental Illness are a national charity who have been supporting Adult Mental Health Transformation in Norfolk and Waveney to co-produce a draft strategy on co-production around mental health services. There are links to both local and national co-production resources on the Mental Health Co-production Strategy and Toolkit page.

There’s lots of great work going on to support co-production in Suffolk, including the Waveney area. You can learn more about the work being done by Healthwatch Suffolk to make sure people are included, and valued, in the shape, design and delivery of health and social care services by visiting their website.