Background
Experience based co design (EBCD) is a tried and tested patient-centred approach to service improvement. Service users/patients and carers and health care staff draw on their experience of receiving or providing a service to identify what needs to change. They then work together as equal partners to suggest, test and implement ideas for change. EBCD has been used successfully in many healthcare settings in the UK and elsewhere and there is evidence that using this approach impacts on all dimensions of quality: effectiveness, safety and experience.
The original EBCD toolkit is free to use. It takes you through each step of the EBCD process with short films to illustrate each step, and resources to download.
We have produced this new toolkit to show how EBCD can be used in maternity services. It illustrates each step of the EBCD process with information, pictures and films from the ‘New Beginnings’ project at St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which focused on improving the experience of women who give birth or have part of their experience in the operating theatre.
The project was led by Emma Evans, Andrew Tan and Julia Crawshaw at St George’s and was funded by the Health Innovation Network in South London.