Emergence of Coproduction and Participatory Care in European Clinical Practice

Abstract

Coproduction as a participatory and collaborative innovation in public service delivery might be particularly useful as a tool for improving quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction in the course of health services provision. This article reviews the practices of coproduction identified in European health care systems. This aims at exploring if the coproduction has already gained a status of significant trend in health services provision and what are the outcomes of coproductive arrangements implemented. In the first part, drawing from the literature review, major types of coproduction in health care have been identified, including shared decision making, self management and expert patient initiatives, and peer support networks. In the second part the existing evidence on European experience with coproduction in health care has been analysed in terms of scale and outcomes. This review demonstrates that while coproduction might be promising addition to institutional mix in health services delivery, it is still at early stage of development. The number and scope of coproductive arrangements is rather low and most of them could be identified in the UK health care system. Possible reasons for limited dissemination of coproduction in the European health care systems are discussed in the last part of the article.