Health and Social Care

Is Our NHS Broken?

How should we fix it?

Does it need more funding?

The state of our NHS and Social Care system is currently the subject of much concern and debate. Our kit looks at the issues from a variety of perspectives including Who Cares, Reducing Demand, and Helping Older People Live Independently.

Background

Many people have called for a ‘national conversation’ on the future of health and care, but none have delivered it. We’ve decided to do our bit by aiming to get 10,000 people talking on this subject. We began with an experiment, involving up to 100 people in late 2017 and early 2018. For the next stage, to reach 1,000 people, we’ve been lucky enough to get funding from the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) via a Catalyst Award.

We will be developing the kits in the final quarter of 2018 for use in the first part of 2019.

Holding an Event

This kit is designed for you to run a stimulating discussion in a small group of up to 6 people in a couple of hours. You will be able to order a set of cards for free, and download the rest of the material too. In return for providing this kit for free, we ask that you spend about 20 minutes after the event giving us feedback on how the event went, and telling us the key points you decided here.

You can also organise larger conversations by grouping people around tables, or in circles, of up to 6 – with each table having their own kit. We will help you put on events like this, and support you whilst you are organising and promoting it. You can ask us via our Get Involved page.

You and your friends will gain much from joining in this discussion. They will learn more about the complexities of the situation and have oppotunities to listen, to question and be questioned themselves. Research shows that by talking about issues, participants not only increase their understanding, but also reinforce their memory of the issues. In addition we will be collating your feedback into a report to the RSA.

Here’s what the card set looks like (click on it to expand):
The whole set

We’d like to the thank the following people and organisations for invaluable help in preparing this kit:

Richard Humphries, King’s Fund and University of Worcester
Ruth Robertson, King’s Fund
Sir Nick Black, London School of Hygience and Tropical Medicine
Heather Downey, Working Age Patient Representative, Rushcliffe, Nottingham
Christine Price, Healthwatch Herefordshire
Sarah Thwaites, Healthwatch Liverpool

We’d also like to thank the RSA who are supporting this work through a Catalyst Grant.