Changing together – brokering constructive conversations Social Care Institute for Excellence, PPL and the Institute for Government

Background

Implementing the NHS Five Year Forward View means areas across England will be changing the way they deliver services. Making these changes successfully will depend on fruitful conversations between health and social care services and the communities they serve.

SCIE, PPL and the Institute for Government, supported by the Health Foundation’s Policy Challenge Fund, will investigate how local areas can best support constructive conversations with the public on ‘wicked issues’ such as moving to new models of care.

The project will first review evidence from the academic literature and understand previous conversations in health and social care. Partners will then support and analyse conversations in three local areas about a service change. Participants who use services will be involved in steering the project overall and both aspects of research.

The project will work with national and local experts to identify what makes a good local conversation, the barriers that make constructive conversations about service change difficult, and how national and local bodies can support successful conversations in the future.

Learnings from this project will help national policymakers and local decision makers understand how best to conduct conversations with their communities on changing models of care. The project is due to be complete by Autumn 2016.

Project findings

This report summarises the findings from a research study which sought to explore how we can better broker constructive conversations with citizens to tackle wicked issues when implementing new models of care. The research was undertaken by the Social Care Institute for Excellence, working in partnership with PPL and the Institute for Government, and funded by the Health Foundation. The report can be read here.

Contact details

For more information about this project, please contact Anna Starling, Policy Fellow at the Health Foundation or Leigh Johnston, Senior Research Analyst at SCIE.