Co-design is a way of improving healthcare services with patients.
Many service improvement projects have patient involvement but co-design focuses on understanding and improving patients' experiences of services as well as the services themselves.
Co-design elements
There are six elements of co-design that form the structure of this guide.
Engage
Establishing and maintaining meaningful relationships with patients to understand and improve healthcare services. This critical element underpins all improvement work and is continuous throughout.
Plan
Working with patients and staff to establish the goals of your improvement work and how you might go about achieving them.
Explore
Learning about and understanding patient experiences of services and identifying improvement ideas.
Develop
Working with patients to turn ideas into improvements that will lead to better patient experiences.
Decide
Choosing what improvements to make and how to make them. Its success depends on an understanding of the patient journey and the insights about service improvement this offers.
Change
Turning your improvement ideas into action. Remember that you do not need to make all the changes by yourself, make as many improvements in partnership with other stakeholders as you can.