A while ago we said, “We’re excited to announce our new project to get 10,000 people talking about health and social care…” Now we’ve even more excited, because the Royal Society of Arts have given us a ‘Catalyst Award’ to help us to start that conversation.

The reason for initiating this project was that we felt that the paralysis on social care funding showed that politicians could not to grasp the nettle alone: citizens need to be part of the conversation. We also noticed that many people have called for a national conversation about health and social care but that nobody has managed to deliver one at scale.

How will we do this? We will develop and distribute a discussion kit which will enable people to discuss key dilemmas. We aim to involve 1,000 people in such discussions. Kits can be used individually by four to six people, perhaps friends and family around the kitchen table, or several used together can be the basis of events for 20 – 30, or more. We will encourage participants to send us their results, which we will collate and turn into the “people’s compact”.

As well as engaging 1,000 people, we also intend to learn how to do two things. First, how we can reach 10,000 people in a future project. Second, how to develop the people’s compact and make it impactful.

We will be developing the kits in the final quarter of 2018 for use in the first part of 2019. Do let us know if you would like to be part of the fun.

Perry Walker