service design for successful ageing

Rosie Farrer

NESTA

• About NESTA

• NESTA & Ageing

• Age Unlimited programme

• Age Unlimited projects

• Things to think about

About NESTA

“Our society is facing complex

challenges, but our public

services are not set up to cope.

Radical thinking is needed -

which is why NESTA has

created The Public Services

Lab.”

www.nesta.org.uk

NESTA & Ageing

Life expectancy, healthy life

expectancy and EU–healthy life

expectancy at birth, Great Britain

1981–2006

Source: ONS

Impact of

demographic

change on PSND

Source: OBR

“Just because I’m over 60

nobody wants to sell me

anything any more.”

– Germaine Greer

• Prevention – people in their 50s and 60s

• Planning for retirement and extending

working lives

• Keeping people active and engaged

• Engaging citizens in the design and delivery of

services to solve problems:

• develop more impactful and cost effective

services that resonate with users

• stimulate behaviour change leading to more

resilient ageing

• Building capacity to use new methods to design

services

• Working with novice community entrepreneurs in

their 50s and 60s

• Developing ventures and community projects to

remain active and engaged as they move into

retirement

• Organisations working to involve users in the design

and delivery of new services

• Call for ideas – 250 applications

• Two day workshop – 30 organisations

• 28 applications received at second stage

• 10 organisations selected

• £50k and non financial support

• Support and new methods

Age Unlimited Projects

She is developing a pre-retirement planning service that will be delivered in the community by community members.

• New thinking and methods

• Involving users and purchasers

• Testing in the community

• Rethinking funding models

• Community Builder’s Approach to

Theory of Change

• Map from the problem the project

aimed to solve through to outputs,

outcomes and long term impacts.

• Interviews with prospective service

users

• Theme insights

• Testing and co-design

In partnership with Coventry NHS Trust they are developing a service for pre-retirement planning and transition amongst health workers

This is Jane and Simon from Coventry University

Things to think about

Test, test

and test

some more Develop

ideas before

selection

Staged process;

initial low barriers

to entry

Support and

finance provided

Using theory

of change to

define impacts

and outcomes

Involving users

in the design

and delivery of

services

Involve

prospective

users and

purchasers early

on

The importance

of insights to

challenge

assumptions

• Testing and refining leads to

confidence in the idea

• Building capacity to approach

problems differently is hard but doable

• Users provide productive disruption

• Methods and mindsets change the

culture

• Evaluation over the next 6 months

• Sharing innovation in ageing

• Broader lessons on involving users

and building capacity to use service

design methods

rosie.farrer@nesta.org.uk

Twitter: @nesta_uk

Twitter: @rosiefarrer