Innovating Care Services Through Co-Operative Enterprises

Social innovation is an approach for individual and community empowerment that seeks radical improvement in public services. The personalisation agenda has been driving huge changes in public services for adult social care and health, with profound implications for service users, commissioners, and providers. Co-operatives are run commercially but with people in mind, and there is a close match between personalisation and the co-operative values in that people share responsibilities for their services and outcomes. This paper is about the intersection of personalisation and the cooperative tradition, with its emphasis on mutual aid and value-led enterprise. We retell the story of personalisation through a co-operative lens, considering two co-operative enterprises that were supported under a Department of Health programme in England (2006 – 2009). Drawing on empirical research, we consider the achievements, challenges and opportunities that faced the cooperatives in establishing themselves as innovative social care providers. Our other intention is to reconsider our findings in light of further advancements made in the personalisation agenda across public services in England