People from across Cornwall came together last week (24 February) to understand how a new approach to designing and delivering services is improving the lives of Cornwall residents.
Cornwall Council brought together over 40 people with lived experiences of adult social care and council staff to the event to see how the approach could be strengthened, as well as looking back at the key achievements.
A co-production steering group has been in place for over a year now, making sure the adult social care and support on offer is fit for, and led by, the people who use it.
Cornwall Council’s Strategic Director for Care and Wellbeing, and co-chair of the Co-production Board, Ali Bulman, said:
“By working with experts by experience we have developed a Co-Production Toolkit to enable staff to work alongside residents in developing policy, so that as a council we do ‘with people’ not ‘to people’.”
David Burns, co-chair of the Board said:
“By designing what you offer from bottom up, we can get personalised support that caters for everybody's needs.
“What does co-production mean to me? Well, I think it is a way for people to come together to achieve an objective. These people can be anyone. And that's what it makes it special.”
Ali Bulman added:
“I’m so proud of what has been achieved so far and I’m really looking forward to seeing what comes next. I think we can look to expanding this work to other areas of the council and from what I’ve heard today there is a lot of enthusiasm to work together as a group to achieve this.”
Cllr Andy Virr, cabinet lead for adult social care and health said:
“Our aim is to make sure Cornwall residents are at the forefront of what we do, there is now the opportunity to develop our approach and set in stone our ambitions for a fairer, more inclusive Cornwall.”
The ideas and information gathered at the event are being put together to produce a plan for the next steps.