Get involved with adult social care services

People with care and support needs, carers, and residents who are interested in supporting us to improve our services can influence services by getting involved in many ways.

If you would like to get involved in any way, please contact us on socialcareengagement@wandsworth.gov.uk so that we can send you a consent form to complete to join our Engagement Register.

Engagement Register

We hold a register of all those people with care and support needs, carers and residents who are interested in working with us to improve our Adult Social Care services. To join the register, we will ask you to complete a consent form that also records some information about your interests, experience with our services and your preferences for the way in which you would like to be involved.

Described below are a number of different ways to get involved, with differing amounts of time and energy required.

Co-production and co-design of services

Co-production is an approach where people who use services, family members, carers, organisations and commissioners work together as one team, from the beginning of the project to the end, sharing influence, skills and experience to co-plan, co-design and monitor services and projects. Co-production recognises that people who use services and their families and carers have both invaluable knowledge and experience that can be used to make services better for themselves and other people who need them.

For more information on co-production you can watch the video below and and read more on the Social Care Institute for Excellence’s website.

Getting involved in co-production and co-design will require a commitment of time to be able to see a project through from start to finish. The time commitment is more than for other less-involved engagement opportunities. However, it comes with the greater reward of being involved from the start of a project and seeing your input through to implementation and beyond. We will agree the commitment to time at the start and provide training where necessary to grow your skills and ability to contribute.

Examples of co-production

A Council, through discussions with carers, sees there is a need to improve access to good local advice and information to support unpaid carers in their caring role. This service would need to span a large geographical area within which there were several districts with different characteristics.

To find the right solution, they work firstly with local unpaid carers to set the outcomes that the new information service would need to achieve, without specifying how this would be done, to encourage bidding organisations to both think hard about how they would address the need.

Further, the Council decides to run a longer tender period to enable bidders to collaborate with carers and form partnership bids with a consortium of partners. This period included several events to first share the vision, and then to consult with carers before the bids are finalised.

At the next stage, carers will also be involved on the bid evaluation panel which ensures that they have input into the decision on who should be awarded the contract.

Engagement activities

These opportunities will be shorter time limited projects where we will set out and agree the time and commitment expectation with you. There are likely to be terms of involvement in the project and more than one meeting or session, and it might include working alongside professionals, both in person and online.

These projects might include a series of focus groups or a workshop, for example, on potential digital solutions to support and care.

For these projects, we will contact a selection of participants from the Engagement Register according to their interest, lived experience and availability (as specified at the time of sign up to the Register) to ask them if they would like to be involved. If they are interested in being involved, we will then discuss the terms of involvement and time commitment to ensure that we are all clear what to expect of each other.

Strategic decision making and board membership

These opportunities will require a commitment of a minimum of 1 year, to attend all regular meetings and time to read papers in advance. These might include being part of an advisory panel or a partnership board; and may also involve decision making at senior management level.

Some examples of these kinds of panels or boards are a Safeguarding Lived Experience Panel, Learning Disabilities Partnership Board, Care and Support Partnership Board, Transitions Improvement Board or a Transport Panel.

We will offer the opportunity to members of the Engagement Register according to their interest, sector specific lived experience and availability; and we might invite others from our existing groups and sector and partner networks.

Where it is required, we will offer training and development to take part in these opportunities.

Getting involved in consultations

From time to time, there will also be opportunities to get involved with consultations which we will send to members on our Engagement Register. These opportunities might include seeking early views on what might be required within a new information and advice programme. Mostly these opportunities will require low time commitment and be online or sent by email for a response by email.

You can find out more about currently available consultations on the Consultation Finder.

User testing

User testing is a really helpful and low-time commitment way of helping us improve our adult social care services. User testing might involve testing a new online form for our website; or sense checking the wording for our written public information; or it might include being involved in a one-off recruitment panel. Often these opportunities will be online or sent by email for a response by email.

We will select the most appropriate people, according to their lived experience and interests, to help us out or we might invite all those on our Engagement Register to give us their views.

Co-production and Partnership group

The Co-production and Partnership Group was set up in February 2018 to work in partnership with officers to help shape the way Adult Social Care services are developed and implemented in the borough.

About co-production

Co-production is not a specific method – it is a way of doing things or an approach. It recognises that people who use services, the community and professionals have equal value and should be involved in identifying what the community requires - designing, delivering and evaluating what is delivered.

Membership

The Co-production and Partnership Group is made up of 15 people who either have care and support needs, or are unpaid carers, or have in the past supported those using Adult Social Care services, as well as partners and representatives of local people and carers who have experience of the local health and social care system. Members are expected to be involved for 1 -2 years as a minimum, although many of our members have been with us for longer.

Where possible, members are asked to discuss issues on the agenda with any relevant groups or networks that they are part of prior to attending meetings and report back to the Group as appropriate.

Role of the group

The role of the group is to:

• Be involved in and contribute to relevant Adult Social Care commissioning and procurement activities to ensure the voice of local people with care and support needs who are using services and their unpaid carers is represented
• Act as the reading group for Adult Social Care public information in a range of formats, including leaflets and web-based information
• Be referred to and provide feedback on a range of local Adult Social Care strategies and policies including consultations
• Be engaged in any other relevant Adult Social Care projects as appropriate to ensure the voices of local people with care and support needs and unpaid carers are heard.

Time commitment: Up to two and a half hours each meeting (plus some reading time in advance to review papers)
When: Meetings take place quarterly
Where: Online or in Wandsworth Town Hall, which is an accessible venue

For more information on the HSCC, please contact socialcareengagement@wandsworth.gov.uk.

If you would like to join the Co-production and Partnership Group please contact us at socialcareengagement@wandsworth.gov.uk and we will send you a consent form to join our Engagement Register, together with more details about how you can apply to join the group in the next recruitment round.

Healthwatch Wandsworth

Healthwatch Wandsworth is the consumer champion for health and social care in Wandsworth. It gives residents a strong voice to influence how local health and social care services are designed and run and has the power to hold providers of these services to account.

If you want to share your experience of using have experience of health and social care services in Wandsworth, you can contact them on the details below or fill in their online form.

Telephone: 020 8516 7767
Email: information@healthwatchwandsworth.co.uk