If someone had told me years ago that I would one day become a Co-production Lead, I probably wouldn’t have believed them. Not because I didn’t care about people’s voices being heard - quite the opposite.
My journey into this career change began as a service user. Over time, I became a volunteer and community leader, passionate about helping people have a voice and creating opportunities for communities to influence the services that affected them. That passion eventually led me to join the NHS as an Involvement Facilitator and now a Co-production Lead.
Looking at that journey now, it might seem like a natural progression. It wasn’t as the truth is that I hated the word “co-production.”
As a service user, I often found myself involved in conversations that were described as involvement, engagement or co-production. Sometimes those experiences were positive, but not always. There were occasions when I gave my time, energy and lived experience freely but didn’t feel genuinely valued for it. Sometimes it felt as though my presence was needed to prove that people had consulted service users rather than because my perspective was truly wanted.
I know many people with lived experience will recognise that feeling. Being invited to the table is one thing but being listened to, respected and fairly rewarded for your contribution is something else entirely.
Too often, involvement felt like consultation disguised as co-production.
Those experiences shaped how I viewed the concept. The word itself felt like another piece of jargon, something that sounded impressive in meetings but didn’t always reflect reality.
Part of me wondered whether true co-production was even possible. How could organisations genuinely share power when they held the budgets, employed the staff and ultimately made the final decisions? I struggled to see how people with lived experience could ever be equal partners in anything.
Even after joining the NHS, those questions stayed with me.
Co-production was part of my role as an Involvement Facilitator, but it wasn’t the main focus. Then organisational changes led to my team becoming a dedicated co-production team, and my role evolved into a Co-production Lead position.
If I’m honest, I hated the thought of it. I even asked if the word co-production was a compulsory part of the team name and my job title!
Not because I didn’t believe in the value of lived experience, but because I wasn’t convinced that co-production, as I had experienced it, lived up to what it promised.
I also worried about the expectations that seemed to come with the term. It often felt as though co-production was viewed as an all-or-nothing concept and that every piece of work had to be fully co-produced from start to finish, and if it wasn’t, then somehow it wasn’t good enough.
I worried about the criticism that can sometimes surround co-production. The comments about whether something had been done “properly” or whether it was “real co-production” often seemed to overshadow the effort people were making to involve others meaningfully.
At the time, it felt like a big pressure, almost a dark cloud hanging over my work.
Then something changed.
The more involved I became, the more examples I saw of co-production making a genuine difference. I saw services listening to people with lived experience, adapting their approaches and changing because of what they heard. Not just listening but acting on feedback and insight.
Gradually, my understanding of co-production began to change.
I realised that meaningful co-production isn’t about achieving perfection, and it certainly isn’t about putting a label on everything we do. It’s not an all-or-nothing process.
Instead, it’s about creating the right conditions for meaningful partnership to happen.
Like any good recipe, you need the right ingredients: trust, relationships, time, commitment, openness and a willingness to share power. Without those ingredients, calling something co-production doesn’t make it so.
Once I started looking at it that way, the concept felt much more achievable and much more authentic. I was already working in this way but hadn’t realised it, building those relationships didn’t feel like co-production but it's all part of building up to be able to co-produce what we are doing. Anyone who knows me knows I often say that “you can’t click your fingers and co-produce something!”
It also changed how I viewed my role.
Today, our team supports and advises colleagues across the Trust on co-production and lived experience involvement. We help teams think about how they can involve people meaningfully and create the conditions needed for genuine partnership to flourish.
We also facilitate and enable a strategic co-production group, bringing together different perspectives to help shape and influence the organisation’s approach.
I’ve come to realise that our role isn’t to police co-production or criticise people for not getting everything perfect. It’s to encourage, support and enable meaningful co-production and partnership working wherever possible.
I suppose now I find myself on the other side of the table, not as a service user being asked for feedback, but as someone responsible for creating opportunities for others to have their voices heard.
That shift has been both rewarding and challenging.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that I never want to forget what it felt like to be the person sitting in the room wondering whether my contribution would really make a difference.
Being a service user gave me insights that no training course could provide. It taught me what meaningful involvement feels like and what tokenism feels like too. It taught me the difference between being listened to and being heard.
Because of those experiences, there is one thing I know for certain, I will never be someone who is there simply to tick a box.
If something doesn’t feel genuine, I will say so. If involvement feels tokenistic, I will challenge it. Not because I want to be difficult, but because people give so much of themselves when they share their experiences and that deserves honesty and respect.
Now that I work in co-production, I hope people feel that same honesty from me. I hope they know that when I ask for their views, I genuinely want to hear them. I hope they know that their lived experience is valued, not just welcomed. Most importantly, I hope they feel that they are helping to shape decisions, not simply endorse them.
Ironically, that word I used to hate and often doubted has become the thing I champion most strongly.
That doesn’t mean I think co-production is easy. It takes time, trust, honesty and a willingness to challenge traditional ways of working. Sometimes it can feel messy and uncomfortable but perhaps that’s exactly why it matters.
For me, meaningful co-production starts with trust. Trust that people will be heard. Trust that their contributions matter. And trust that if we ask people to share their experiences, we are prepared to act on what they tell us.
The truth is co-production isn’t a destination that organisations reach and then tick off a list. It’s an ongoing commitment to working together differently.
Looking back, I’m glad I was sceptical. My doubts forced me to question whether co-production was genuinely happening or simply being talked about. They helped shape the way I work today.
I may have hated the word at first, I may not have wanted it in my job title.
But now I understand that co-production isn’t really about the word at all.
It’s about people, it’s about ensuring that those who use services are not just participants in conversations but partners in change.
And as someone who has experienced life as a service user, a volunteer, a community leader, an Involvement Facilitator and now a Co-production Lead, I know just how powerful that can be.
The service user I once was is still very much part of the Co-production Lead I am today. It’s that experience that keeps me grounded, keeps me honest and reminds me why this work matters.
Real co-production isn’t about ticking boxes or meeting targets, it’s about creating meaningful change with people, not for them. We don’t always get it right, but we’re making real progress and continuing to learn together.
By Lucie Oakey, Partnership and Co-production Lead