The role of young people at the centre of service design

• Co-production with young people

• Building trust with service users

• Collaboration with the voluntary and community sectors

Background

Wirral Community Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust (WCHC) provides a range of community health services, including sexual health, health visiting, school nursing, district nursing and urgent community response, as well as primary care services. The trust employs around 1,850 members of staff who serve approximately 693,700 people in Wirral and parts of Cheshire, St Helens and Knowsley.

In April 2024, WCHC was commissioned by Wirral Council to deliver a dedicated sexual health service for young people aged 13 to 19 years old – extending to 25 year olds with special educational needs and disabilities. These services are delivered separately to adult sexual health services and as part of Sexual Health Wirral (SHW). Prior to this, sexual health services for young people in the area were provided by Brook Wirral.

Co-producing Wirral’s new sexual health service with young people

SHW wanted to involve young people in designing the service from the outset. This is the first time the trust has delivered a dedicated young person’s sexual health service, and the team wanted to build a service around the needs of young people in the community.

Engagement and outreach activity was led by the service development coordinator from SHW, who engaged with a diverse group of young people about what they wanted from a new sexual health service. This included asking people about their preferred days, times and locations to access services. 

The Hive Youth Zone, a local charity dedicated to providing a safe space for young people in Wirral to go, played a central role in facilitating engagement. Members of the SHW team went to the Hive centre to speak to young people directly about what they wanted to see in a new sexual health service. They used this engagement to develop a survey for young people, which they disseminated through a range of youth agencies operating in the area. The team received 100 responses to the survey, representing young people from across the community, in terms of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and disability status.

The survey showed that young people wanted the service to deliver confidential care, without judgement, in a non-clinical space. The team at WCHC used these findings to design the space, prioritising confidentially in the layout, and using decoration and furniture that made the space feel less clinical. 

Raising the profile of the new sexual health service

The service has been named ‘ourPlace’. This was an important decision, and the team engaged with young people to ensure the name reflected the fact that the service was ‘built from the ground up’, with their voices at the centre.

The previous sexual health service, Brook, was well known in the area and the team has worked to raise awareness of ourPlace with young people in the local community. At the start, the service was relatively quiet, but uptake has increased. Communicating with young people about the service, including through social media, wider 0-19 services and schools, has been central to encouraging uptake. For instance, the team has created a video showing young people how to find ourPlace, sharing information on transport options, and giving a walkthrough of how you find the service.

The team is considering how they can expand their reach. Currently, most service users are female and looking for contraception or pregnancy testing. The team is now working with community organisations to widen access to sexual health services for the population.

Enablers of success

Collaboration with community and voluntary sector organisations has played a critical role in supporting co-production with young people. This collaborative approach has also helped the team to share information about ourPlace and reach an increasing number of young people. 

Building trust with young people has been a key enabler of success. From their experiences engaging with young people through engagement groups and surveys, the team has learned that trust takes time to build.

Success has been achieved by service managers, frontline staff and young people and the team has worked hard to create something special that reflects the needs of local young people. WCHC’s board has given the team the time and support to do this, trusting them to develop an effective service for local people.

Next steps

The team continue to seek feedback on the delivery of ourPlace, and so far, it has been very positive.

At the 12-month point, SHW will conduct a full review of the whole service to better understand key metrics on who is using ourPlace, what for and how long they use the service for.

WCHC’s board is considering how they can work with other trusts, including those in the acute sector, to share best practice and look at pathways in an integrated way. This will play a key role in streamlining experiences for young people being treated in both community and hospital settings.