Hard to reach, or struggling to be heard? Real-life experience of coproduction with people with learning disabilities

Abstract

Background: Coproduction is a fast-developing approach to patient involvement. It entails health and social care services users working as equals in partnership with providers and other public institutions to produce novel research and information, usually aimed at the improvement of service planning and delivery. Methods: This paper presents two real-life examples of attempted coproduction with a group of men with learning disabilities in England. The first case study concerns the piloting and assessment of a ‘user-friendly’ version of a local authority's ‘vision statement’. The second explores an attempt to secure funding to develop and evaluate a community intervention with and for people with learning disabilities. Findings: Together, these portraits capture two important and intertwined problems that afflict the field of coproduction: namely, the drive to create fast results and the challenges of time and resource allocation that service users and professionals face whenever they attempt to coproduce work in a meaningful way. Conclusions: The paper concludes with some suggestions for how policy and practice might seek to address these issues in the future.