— Discussion and Analysis

Healthcare systems redesign and service improvement approaches are adopting participatory tools, techniques and mindsets. Participatory methods increasingly used in healthcare improvement coalesce around the concept of coproduction, and related practices of cocreation, codesign and coinnovation. These participatory methods have become the new Zeitgeist—the spirit of our times in quality improvement.

Co-design in mental health is the work of equal stakeholders, including consumers, families/ carers, clinicians and mental health staff working together to identify a problem and then define a solution. Co-production involves consumers, families/ carers at every stage of the process, reinforcing the idea that the people who use the service are best placed to help produce it.

Mental Health Australia has produced a two-page document setting out the roles and responsibilities of all parties involved in co-design – government agencies, consumers and carers and other key stakeholders – to effectively co-design mental health policies and programs. The document, which has been developed with input from National Mental Health Consumer and Carer Forum members and Mental Health Australia members, encourages behaviours and attitudes that are conducive to genuine co-design partnerships.

Co-design is essential for better mental health interventions by developing them in partnership with people with lived experience of mental health issues and the service providers that support them. But who is best to do it? When? And how do they do it safety for everyone involved, in a system that is already stretched? These the key questions that need our attention.

In this co-presented keynote, two researchers share their personal and professional reflections on the shifting sands of co-production in action. The discussion will centre around contrasting perspectives of the collaborative process, service user and service provider stereotypes within academia, how leaning into uncertainty is an essential component of co-production, and who really is the specialist when both parties consider themselves experts (spoiler alert: it’s both).