Co-production: the European perspective

As National Co-Production Week 2024 gets underway, it was also the focus for the European Social Services Conference, writes David Brindle

The annual European Social Services Conference is always a great opportunity to take stock of how the English and other UK care systems are performing compared to others. This year’s focus was co-production – and the clear takeaway was that we have a good deal to be proud of. 

Everything is relative, of course. But without claiming that we have got co-production anywhere near sorted or embedded in England, far from it, the scale of interest at the conference in what we have managed to achieve suggested that other countries look to us with some respect. 

Almost 700 people attended this year’s ESSC, organised by the European Social Network, in Antwerp at the end of June. There was a healthy UK representation, including a group of people with lived experience from Think Local Act Personal and Georgia Chimbani, director of adult and community services in Suffolk who leads the ADASS International Network and sits on the ESN board. She moderated one of the conference plenary sessions. 

Most ESSC delegates come from EU states, but this year as well as the UK contingent there were groups from the US, Canada, Singapore and the Middle East. And the biggest single delegation, of more than 80, came from non-EU Iceland. 

The EU is preparing for its overall population to start to shrink from 2026, while continuing to age, and is as anxious about recruitment and retention in social care as we are in England. One of the most popular sessions at the conference was on the potential of AI and robotics, with film of robots assisting people to eat in prototype trials in Spain drawing gasps from the audience. 

A presentation from Denmark suggested that applying Buurtzorg principles of self-management to multi-disciplinary home care teams in about one in four municipalities had made a highly positive impact on care worker motivation and retention – though had been less well received by nurses and therapists. 

Robin Millar, professor of collaborative learning in health and social care at Birmingham University, drew an appreciative audience for his presentation on the value of drawing on lived experience in care practice and research, citing in particular the work of the Birmingham-based IMPACT centre for implementation of evidence in adult social care. 

Reflecting harsh realities of the emergence of waiting lists for care and support in the UK and elsewhere, as documented in England by ADASS surveys, Millar told delegates that a key challenge was “what can we do to help people to wait well?” 

The full conference was addressed by Nicolas Schmit, EU commissioner for jobs and social rights, who demonstrated a welcome understanding of the economic value of social care in declaring that “social services contribute to the resilience and competitiveness of Europe – we must keep pushing to improve working conditions in the sector”. 

The 2025 ESSC will be held in Aarhus, Denmark, next June.  

by David Brindle, a leading social policy journalist and former public services editor and Society editor for the Guardian newspaper.