Co-creating the stroke recovery journey in West Yorkshire

The challenge

In 2021, New Citizen Project was commissioned by NHS Leadership Academy North East and Yorkshire to design and run co-production training for primary care leaders within the network. 

Following this training, West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership shared an ambition to work in more participatory ways across the region - bringing health and care professionals together with patients and families to design new services and improve existing ones.

An opportunity arose to apply the learnings from our co-production training to an existing project within the Integrated Stroke Delivery Network, exploring the question: How can we work together to give stroke survivors a better recovery?

Our approach

Working with local health and care teams, including voluntary sector partners, we brought together a group of survivors, families, clinicians and others working in stroke services to contribute their unique experiences and expertise through a two-part workshop process, designed and delivered by New Citizen Project.

Through storytelling activities, we established key ingredients for good stroke recovery, which centred around the idea of ‘compassionate care’. We shared examples of what these ingredients can look like in different contexts, and used a visioning exercise to imagine what might be different for the stroke recovery journey in West Yorkshire in the future.

Impact and Learning

The co-created outputs of the workshops went on to inform decision making in the service design process. In addition, our own recommendations included:

• Reflections on language. Participants felt that the word ‘pathway’ simply did not reflect the experience of stroke recovery, describing it more as an ‘ocean’. 

• Involving the voluntary sector. Patients don’t see a division between the clinical and the non-clinical, so local groups and organisations should stay part of this work.

• Keeping the group going. Patients playing a role was a key ingredient for a good recovery, so our encouragement was to keep working with this group as the service is developed. We have been thrilled to see this happen. Supported through our Participation Into Action programme, the team have continued to work in with the group, most notably co-producing a new local stroke services directory, All Things Stroke.