If you have completed the section on Deciding what to commission or deliver you will have already ticked off some of the actions below.
There is no strict order to this and depending on your circumstances different steps may be most urgent. Laying this groundwork will make your upcoming service design meetings productive so don’t be tempted to skip it.
Your service design group will take your service from idea to launch. They should be invested in the service in a range of ways and bring different skills and expertise to the process. The group should meet regularly and is usually convened by the service commissioner, or the delivery organisation; it should include representation from both. However, it also needs to bring together other key stakeholders. Below is a (non-exhaustive) list of people to include:
A commissioner will play a crucial role in defining the need for the service as well as providing input around the allocation of resources and the development of performance indicators. Their role is to ensure the service meets programme/policy objectives and so need to be part of shaping the service and its evaluation. A funder may be less directly involved, but reference to their aims and stipulations on funding are essential to this process.
These are the people who will ultimately have to action almost every part of the service design and will typically bring knowledge skills related to:
Key stakeholders will vary depending on the proposed service, but could include those from potential referring organisations, services you expect to interact with the one you are designing, relevant health professionals, or community organisations already working with your target community
Involving the community ensures services are relevant, acceptable, and meet the needs of the people they’re intended for. Taking a co-design approach empowers the community to be actively involved in shaping services and fosters a sense of ownership. It’s important to ensure the individuals involved in the process are representative of the target population.
Services and evaluations require effective data management processes and systems. Including someone who is confident working with data from the start of the process will help to ensure feasible data capture which meets monitoring and evaluation requirements. You may not have someone with this specific job title, but you will need someone with significant data competence.
Not every service design process will need an academic partner, however, they can provide valuable expertise in relation to the existing evidence base, service development, and evaluation. If there is an aspiration to understand the effectiveness of a service then the involvement of an academic partner at the earliest stage will make this a more realistic option.
Generally, you will want at least one person from each of the groups mentioned above. Not everyone will need to be involved in every meeting but this group should provide a combination of skills and knowledge that assists with this process.
Completing (or starting) the actions below before starting Service Design, helps to make meetings with your Service Design group efficient and productive. You may need to allocate actions to other members of the group before your first meeting.
You can find suggested outlines for your Service Design meetings in the next section.
Outline the budget |
This does not need to be final, an estimate allows you to start planning capacity and delivery. We recommend a minimum of 10% of the overall budget be allocated to evaluation. |
Review local needs assessment and engage with the community/stakeholders |
See Deciding what to commission or deliver for more details |
Establish whether you are adapting an existing service or developing a new service from scratch. |
See Deciding what to commission or deliver for more details |
Establish whether a manual for delivery exists |
Some models for services are manualised. This means that details have been set out for how it is delivered. A good example of this is HAPPY programme manual. If there isn’t a manual the Service Design Questionnaire can help you to collate some of the important information. |
Identify whether there is an existing Theory of Change and/ or Logic Model |
See Deciding what to commission or deliver for more details |
Review and rate the evidence for the service |
See Deciding what to commission or deliver for more details |
Consider possible options around evaluation (how evaluation ready is the service?) |
Establishing what level of evaluation is appropriate will need further discussion, but at a minimum you should plan for an implementation evaluation. You can find more information on levels of evaluation, in the Planning the Evaluation section. |
Consider current service data collection and how this might need to be adapted |
Completing the Service Design Questionnaire provides a systematic way of doing this. This is probably best completed by the delivery organisation. |
Establish a timeline for service design, implementation, and delivery start date. |
Setting realistic timelines is important. Sufficient time should be allocated to the Service Design process (allow a minimum of 3 months). When designing a new service from scratch this process can take longer. |
