Designing the future of care with seldom-listened-to people

Our projects are carried out in the context of persisting health inequalities which determine whether people lead healthy lives. The overarching lesson from our ten projects that span the UK, is that it is both possible and indeed vital to co-design the future of health and care with seldom-listened-to individuals and communities if we are to succeed in improving health and care for everyone. Whilst professionals often perceive this as challenging, we find that creative and humanities-based approaches help facilitate the process of co-designing health and care supporting seldom-listened-to individuals and communities to fully engage. Although each of the projects has its own distinct focus and unique findings, we collectively demonstrate the positive impacts of this approach for individuals, communities, and stakeholders, across the life course. We coined the term, Health Labour, to represent the burden on the individual and those associated with the individual to access and navigate care.
Our projects outlined ways to enhance the accessibility of care by taking this co-design approach. The lessons learned are transformative to the future of health and care.