Why Co-Production Matters in Social Care

September 11, 2025

📘 Blog 1 of 7 in our Co-Production & Engagement Series
Why Co-Production Matters in Social Care

Links to all 7 blogs in this series are at the bottom of this post.

🤝 Co-Production = Voice, Choice, and Partnership

In social care, co-production is not a buzzword — it’s about ensuring that the voices of people with lived experience directly shape services. True engagement goes beyond consultation: it means designing, delivering, and reviewing services together with people supported, families, and communities.

Commissioners and the CQC increasingly expect co-production evidence in method statements, strategies, and inspections. It’s linked to outcomes, human rights, and quality — and services that can demonstrate it often score higher in tenders and perform better in ratings.

🔑 What Commissioners Expect

Commissioners want providers to evidence how co-production and engagement lead to better outcomes and stronger services. High-scoring responses typically include:

Service design — examples of people with lived experience shaping new services or pilots.
Ongoing involvement — how service users and families are engaged in policy reviews, training design, or recruitment panels.
Diverse voices — inclusion of people from different backgrounds, communication needs, and communities.
Feedback loop — “You said, we did” reporting that shows learning and change.

For example, in a learning disability tender, commissioners expect to see how families and advocates shape PBS plans. In a domiciliary care bid, it might be service users co-designing rotas or digital tools for care planning.

👁️ What Inspectors Look For

The CQC places co-production under the Well-Led and Responsive domains. Inspectors look for evidence that providers are not just talking about engagement but embedding it:

Structured involvement — advisory groups, service user forums, or co-production boards.
Representation — service users on interview panels, governance meetings, or strategy workshops.
Impact — evidence of changes made because of lived-experience feedback.
Accessibility — materials and forums adapted for communication, culture, and capacity.

🧭 Core Elements of Co-Production

Equal partnership — treating lived experience as expertise.
Capacity-building — training and supporting people to contribute meaningfully.
Diverse engagement — reaching seldom-heard groups (e.g., people with profound disabilities, carers, minority communities).
Feedback culture — visible processes that show input is acted on.
Governance — co-production reported to the board and linked to QA cycles.

Many providers embed this through a bid strategy process, ensuring their engagement evidence is captured, structured, and ready for tenders.

⚠️ Risks of Weak Co-Production

Tokenism — consultation without influence undermines trust.
Exclusion — not adapting processes excludes people with communication or cultural needs.
Lack of evidence — engagement not recorded or reported can’t be evidenced in tenders or inspections.

These risks weaken both trust and competitive standing. Strong, documented co-production creates credibility with commissioners, inspectors, and communities.

💡 Practical Example

Scenario: A supported living provider redesigns shift patterns after feedback that late-night changes caused anxiety for people with autism.

Engage: Service user forum raises the issue; advocates support communication.
Co-design: Service users, families, and staff work together to trial new fixed-shift patterns.
Implement: Pilot introduced; feedback gathered after 4 weeks.
Report: “You said, we did” update shows reduced incidents and better sleep patterns.

In a tender, this would evidence both engagement and outcomes — strengthening the bid.

🛠️ Practical Tips for Providers

Make every answer scorable: mirror the question’s headings, signpost clearly, and prove each claim with a concise data point or example.
Standardise your toolkit: keep one live set of method statements, annexes and KPIs so teams aren’t reinventing content each time.
Protect word counts: prioritise impact lines, cut duplication, and move low-value detail into annexes or tables.
Evidence cadence: publish a quarterly mini “commissioner pack” (KPI trends, governance actions, case studies) so renewals are never a scramble.
Triaging discipline: only pursue tenders where you can evidence fit, safe mobilisation and measurable outcomes at the proposed price.