Designing person-centred services for housing, social care and health
Taking a design approach to person-centred services
Taking a design approach to person-centred services means we take time to understand the problem from a range of perspectives before creating a solution. Person-centred design is being embedded across the public sector in Scotland. Here you can get a better understanding of how this can make a difference for your project.
You do not need to be a designer to use this guide. It is drawn from design expertise but focuses on the lived experience of Housing, Social Care and Health teams using this approach to (re)design their services.
The Double Diamond is an internationally recognised structure for guiding the design process. Developed by the UK Design Council in 2004 and featured in the Scottish Approach to Service Design, it is made up of four stages: Discover, Define, Develop and Deliver.
How this resource is structured
Design Principles
What makes this approach work? How can you make the most of it?
Find out more Find out moreDesign Process
The Double Diamond by stage: discover, define, develop and deliver.
Find out more Find out moreTool Directory
A range of tools available for each stage of the design process
Find out more Find out moreExamples from practice
Transforming Midlothian’s Frailty Care System
Midlothian Health and Social Care Partnership had an opportunity to do things very differently - to properly understand the problem before leaping into solutions. The Pathfinder programme is adopting the Scottish Approach to Service Design to transform an important aspect of services or supports (the ‘whole system’) towards prevention in each of four pathfinder areas.
Using service design approaches in designing the purple alert system
In 2015 the Innovations & Development Team at Alzheimer Scotland was approached by our Chief Executive Henry Simmons to see how we could better support missing people with dementia in Scotland. Purple alert is a free mobile app which raises an alert to the community if someone with dementia is missing in their area.
Using service design approaches in Hanover
Hanover Scotland is a Housing Association providing a range of housing and services, mainly for older people. Hanover was interested in moving toward more proactive, preventative approaches to care. In early 2022, they were granted funding from the Scottish Government’s TEC Programme to discover what a proactive calling service could look like at Hanover.
Developing a new Customer Experience Strategy for the Clyde Valley Group
In 2020 we introduced a new Customer Experience Strategy for the Clyde Valley Group. This strategy aimed to improve our services to provide an outstanding customer experience and to reduce customer effort. We needed to understand our customers, their needs and aspirations and, most importantly, their expectations of outstanding customer experience.
Design community of practice
Here at Healthcare Improvement Scotland, we run a quarterly Design Community of Practice event to support the development of design practices and professions. We work with designers, and those working on design projects across health, housing and social care to support, share knowledge, experience and challenges in embedding person-centred design within health and social care.
If this is something you wish to find out more about, or to join, please read more here: Design Community of Practice