Stockport Council's new adult social care website 'My Care, My Choice': A business case for service co-design

Lessons learnt

• Information is really important to support informed decision making and websites are a hugely important way that service users, family members, carers, staff and partners can access the information. In saying that, it’s still important to provide information in traditional formats such as leaflets.
  
  
• Patience is key when delivering a new website - the ICT side of things can take a long time to sort, particularly in a local authority. Getting separate departments to work together is not always easy!
  
  
• Co-production with customers is really key to delivering success and ensuring a website that fits their needs.
  
  
• We need to reach people who are not traditional users of our services and this website should hopefully provide those people with another ‘front door’ through which they can access our services.
  
  
• Staff and partners use the resource as much as our customers. Not only does this boost our efficiency in delivering the service, it has helped them to take pride and  feel ownership in the service. Moreover, it means that we now benefit from their ideas for continuous improvement. Staff and partners also provide a great vehicle for promoting the site - you should never underestimate the power of ‘word of mouth’.
  
  
• We need to deliver better quality advice and information to ensure we address the demographic and economic challenges the local authority currently faces – My Care, My Choice is just one part of that.
  
  
• Building this site has made us more ambitious to deliver greater functionality - for example, building a citizen portal where someone can complete a self assessment, develop their support plan and shop for services and choices in an online market place. That’s our next project!