Co-producing Health Services in Rural Areas through Social Enterprise’: AAG Annual Meeting

The current policy context in the U.K. promotes the 'co-production' of health and care services - with service users and providers working in partnership to design and deliver services. However, the assumption that all individuals and communities have the personal resources, skills and willingness to get involved in co-produced services may have implications for social and geographical equity of access to health and care services. This paper presents the results of a 9-month action research project with a remote and rural community in Scotland to discuss the implications of co-produced health and care services for remote and rural community members – particularly those with ageing populations. The research project worked with community members, health care providers and commissioners to develop a community social enterprise model for home care delivery. The example is used to demonstrate the types of resources that rural individuals and communities draw on in order to create social enterprises and how the potentially negative impacts of co-produced services for different types of social and geographical community may be overlooked in contemporary policy and practice.