Case Study: Age UK
Sparking new connections in adult social care
“My experience was very positive - the session was free-flowing, with a lot of opportunity to have productive conversations. We immediately saw the opportunities to collaborate.”
The problem
The crisis of social care in the UK is well-known. A patchwork of public services, charities, and independent organisations work hard to support people needing care, but they often operate in silos or even direct competition.
For policymakers at the local and central government level, the day-to-day realities of adult social care centres remain distant. And even local charities sometimes struggle to keep strong communication channels, meaning they duplicate services or needlessly run up extra costs that could be saved by better collaboration.
Our solution
The value of connecting different stakeholders in this space seemed clear. So we were delighted that the team at the Yalding Centre could make the time to share their expertise with local and central government representatives. We brought together participants from Southwark Council, Public Health England, the Aging Society Grand Challenge team at Department of Health and Social Care, and adult social care charity Time & Talents, on site at the Age UK Yalding Centre in Southwark.
This session aimed to enable frontline experts to share their expertise with policy professionals, and for the policy participants to build a sense of empathy for the day-to-day-reality of this day centre. Our group spent the morning shadowing the activities at the centre and engaging in conversation with staff from across the organisation.
The afternoon’s activities included tools to draw out the key insights gathered in the morning, and we led participants through an ideation process that challenged everyone to think broadly about how they might tackle the pain points they identified.
Outcomes
This group has built a stronger understanding of the provision of adult social care in Lewisham and Southwark. Age UK and Time & Talents were able to identify a key way to collaborate and save money, by bringing together their large group events, such as at Christmas and Easter. Our participant from Public Health England was blown away by the commitment of the centre staff, and has been a vocal ambassador for policymakers to spend time on the frontline ever since.