Co-creating Health: South West London and St George’s Health NHS Trust and NHS Wandsworth

The aim was to introduce positive benefits from efficient self-management thereby improving people’s confidence and quality of life, and reducing the burden on the NHS. To achieve this they rolled out the three elements of the Co-creating Health programme:

• Self-management Programme (SMP) for people with long-term conditions
• Advanced Development Programme (ADP) for clinicians
• Service Improvement Programme (SIP) to redesign services.

The team found that motivating both clinicians and people with depression to complete the whole SMP and ADP programmes made meeting their targets challenging. However evidence did show that the programme had made a positive impact on people’s lives.

SMP: Evaluation showed that people with depression who had attended reported significant reductions in anxiety and depression. First person accounts also suggested that some were experiencing a better quality of life. Local data also showed the SMP led to a reduction in occupied bed days and the total amount of contact people had with services, suggesting that people felt more able to self-manage their condition and avoid crisis situations.

ADP: Clinicians reported greater self-assessed competence in being able to use the three Co-creating Health enablers as part of their consultations: agenda-setting, goal setting and goal follow up.

SIP: A number of teams trialled service improvements focussing on the three enablers. First person accounts from clinical staff suggested that these were helpful in consultations. It also created considerable interest from within and outside the organisation in similar services for people with other long-term conditions. 

This project was twinned with the Co-Creating Health project at Torbay Care Trust.