Co-production in healthcare

Co-production has been promoted as a way of organising services and restructuring relationships between service users and professionals in a range of different public services. We understand co-production to refer to the direct contribution of patients, service users and/or family members to the health or wellbeing service from which they (or their family members) benefit (Brandsen and Honingh, this volume). Healthcare is a service sector in which there is a particular impetus for co-productive approaches, as responsive and inclusive services can enhance individual and collective wellbeing, but it is also a setting in which the barriers to co-production may be particularly prohibitive. In this chapter, we will discuss the distinctive context of co-production in healthcare and the particular obstacles that this approach creates in the health sector.