Design for Social Change : Case Study

Conversations for life - talking about dying well

BACKGROUND

The UK Department of Health was one of the first in the world to have a National End of Life Care strategy. Key priorities included increasing awareness and education of both the public and staff. End of life conversations are avoided and can be difficult for both health/social care staff and the public to begin. How to engage the healthy public in end of life conversations (advance care planning) was the task.

Approach

Partnering with international health care and end of life educator, Mary Matthiesen, we proposed to our local NHS trust a project and process that engaged community organisations, the public and the health services as partners in the solution. A pilot project was funded under a public health innovation fund, using filmed stories to act as a catalyst for change. The project:

Engaged in gathering stories from health care and public sectors showing problems and solutions for care.
Created a public health campaign. Designing products and a platform to inspire conversations and connections that led to creating new solutions (vs. providing them)
Designed workshops for public and health care to explore conversations, problems and solutions.
Designed a platform for wide-scale distribution (Web, training, conference, strategy meetings, community workshops).
Delivered and shared outcomes with other stakeholders across UK

We continue delivering services and resources to both the public and health care educators and professionals.

Visit the Conversations for Life website »

Solution

A designated website launched linking hundreds of organisations and resources, and consulting and localised product templates to deliver an integrated campaign.

Our co-branded website used approved templates to guide both the public and local services to information from conversations and planning to access care.