5 steps for Primary Health Networks before embarking on their next service design project.

Service design (e.g. combining engagement with stakeholders and consumers with leading evidence of ‘what works’) is fast becoming business as usual for many in the Primary Health Networks, from early years to aged care.

Recently, our team has closed out a number of PHN specific design projects. As a means of providing value for our PHN colleagues, we thought we would share some specific service design insights and tips for you to consider before running your next service design process.

To cut to the chase, here are the 5 things we believe PHNs should consider to set themselves up for service design success:

1. Leveraging what is on hand (e.g. information, advisory mechanisms and relationships with peer PHNs)

2. Prioritising engagement with community members

3. Setting expectations with professional stakeholders (e.g. is the opportunity true ‘co-design’ or ‘consultation’)

4. Utilising the service design process as an opportunity for market sounding, and

5. Being mindful of your role as a commissioner and not overreaching.

1. Leveraging what is on hand

Before launching into a service design process, PHNs can ensure they aren’t starting completely from scratch by using a number of existing avenues and resources to frame up the service design opportunity. We recommend:

• Utilising your Health Needs Assessment and any other previous consultation efforts (this will save the ‘eye-roll’ moment with stakeholders that they have told you this information many times before)

• Engaging with your existing advisory mechanisms (e.g. community and clinical councils) to frame up the problem and potential solution. This may seem like a common sense move but is often glossed over.

• Understanding sector trends and leading research or models of care to broaden your knowledge of what is ‘contemporary’.

• Reaching out to your peer PHNs and engaging them in a conversation about what they have tried, what has worked and what hasn't. There are some very bright sparks out there and in our experience, most are up for sharing. 

2. Prioritising engagement with community members as a priority

Based on recent engagements, the best and most opportune time to ensure community members can have the most meaningful say in a service design process is at the very start. We recommend:

• Using a methodology like Experience Based Co-Design, to re-frame how broader stakeholders are engaged throughout the process so that it is consumer-centred.

• Capturing and consolidating key values and principles to use as a tool to steer the process to ensure outcomes align with the essence of what consumers want.

3. Setting expectations with professionals 

Setting expectations with broad professional stakeholders when involving them in a service design process is key to achieving a good outcome and avoiding any misalignment of expectations. We recommend:

• Being transparent regarding the origin and objectives of the funding source e.g. what is in and out of scope? What are the hard boundaries? Where is there room for creativity and innovation?

• Resisting the urge to call everything ‘co-design’. The IAP2 engagement spectrum is a good guide for what and how you engage with stakeholders. Co-design has a very specific meaning and implies a significant degree of decision-making rights for participants. ‘Co-design’ in this form may be better suited to supporting service providers ‘co-design’ a service with service users. 

• Collecting only the information you need from stakeholders. From the work that we do on the service provider side of the fence we often pick up a ‘vibe’ that many service providers are fatigued with endless ‘co-design’ processes and over-sharing their ideas.

4. Utilising the service design process as an opportunity for market signalling

As much of a benefit as you get from engaging with a broad range of stakeholders when designing a new service model, there is equally as much benefit as using the opportunity to raise awareness with the sector itself and giving them time to understand what exactly you are seeking. We recommend:

• Using service design processes as an opportunity to communicate about the type of service you’d like to see established e.g. what are you trying to achieve strategically 

• Building strong, respectful and professional relationships with stakeholders - it is likely that organisations who are interested in delivering the service you are currently designing will be involved in the consultation process. Use the time to understand ideas and challenges from a service provider perspective.

• Implementing a process or approach such as the ‘double diamond’ to generate ground swell and awareness for what is coming whilst refining your service model.

5. Being mindful of your role as a commissioner and not overreaching

One final takeaway that may take a bit to digest - PHNs should be very mindful of their role as a commissioner of health services as opposed to a service delivery organisation. It is very likely that each individual organisation will have their own ways of working and strengths and barriers that may not necessarily have to fit exactly with what you have designed (... but could still meet the broad needs identified during a service design process). We recommend:

• Resisting the urge to go down into a level of detail that becomes limiting for organisations to tender against. Values, principles, experiences and some key requirements that, in many circumstances, would be enough to receive quality proposals.

• Consider allocating a budget in the contract for the service provider to conduct co-design activities, ideally with people who will be accessing the service. This is where true ‘co-design’ can occur as consumers who access the service itself can be engaged intensively to design exactly what the service should look and feel like.

So there you have it, five key takeaways that we believe may prompt some thoughts for a PHN network before jumping into their next service design project. Just keep in mind that the points above are not the only considerations - just a selection of important points we believe will resonate with our PHN colleagues and may bring you value.

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Find out more about how we run service design projects by heading to this page, or, read some of our PHN project pages below.