Co-production refers to active input by the people who use services in this sense it contrasts with approaches that treat people as passive recipients of services designed and delivered by someone else. On the following page are examples of how marketing concepts can be applied to co-production.
The Importance of this Work
There are increasingly moves towards having health and social services provided by non-state organisations, including community groups, religious organisations and so on. Such work is being undertaken within an overall framework of people being able to choose who they receive such services from.
That element of choice brings in a role for marketing. Surprisingly marketing is not just about selling fizzy drinks and advertising. The underlying principles can be used to do things like promote behaviour change towards healthier lifestyles. Marketing as a discipline also offers various theories, concepts and tools that can be used to understand the relationships between formal healthcare organisations, informal community groups and the people they are both seeking to serve.
This site explores each of these issues in some more detail. Because it's important to share a common understanding of terms, in various places on this site, I'll put up yellow boxes such as those below, which give the definitions of key concepts that I am using. These can often be defined differently in different disciplines, the ones I am using are predominantly from a managerial perspective.
Here are some of the questions I am interested in exploring as part of my research:
Here are some definitions of the term 'co-production' by people involved in researching and using it. Some of the themes with are shared by all of these definitions are the notions of the people who receive services, working together with the professionals who provide them.
