#DoWith North West: What happens next?

We were thrilled to welcome a full house to the first #DoWith North West event this week.

On Monday 14 July, VSNW and The King’s Fund hosted a packed #DoWith North West event at the St Thomas Centre in Manchester, bringing together people from across the voluntary, community, public and health sectors to ask one big question: how do we shift from doing things to or for people, to doing things with them?

What we heard

We began with an introduction from Adam Lent (The King’s Fund), who set the scene with a reminder of why the #DoWith movement matters now more than ever and how co-production can move from theory to real system change.

We then heard powerful and personal reflections from three North West speakers:

• Katy Cleece, Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust
  Katy shared learning from the Research Engagement Network, an NHS England-funded programme co-developed with communities, social workers and academics to amplify seldom-heard voices in research. She reflected on the importance of co-production between professionals and people with lived experience, highlighting how roles like ‘researcher’ and ‘the researched’ often overlap.

• Annette Cloherty, NHS Greater Manchester
  Annette, alongside Shannon from the Elephants Trail, shared the journey of GM Live Well, Greater Manchester’s growing movement for community-led health and wellbeing. They showcased the Made by Mortals video exploring what “living well” means to local people, and reflected on the importance of listening, learning and community reporting as part of building a system that works with communities.

• Inayat Omarji MBE, Recover Bolton and We’re Right Here
  Inayat spoke candidly about the reality of partnership working, drawing from Recover Bolton’s recent experience of being invited into multiple commissioning bids where involvement felt like a tick-box exercise, not a genuine collaboration.

What’s next?

We’re now pulling together the feedback and ideas from the day to publish a practical guide for North West organisations. We’re also exploring the creation of a regional #DoWith group to take this work forward collaboratively.

If you'd like to be involved or stay in the loop, please get in touch.

Thanks again to everyone who joined us and helped shape the conversation, we’re excited for what comes next.