A network of voluntary organisations in north London wanted to launch a cutting edge service to support people with a new dementia diagnosis. I helped them develop a service blueprint and an impact measurement model.

Discover

The project was building on a wealth of knowledge and experience accumulated over years of activity by the delivery partners and on the learning from a pilot in another Borough. In order to focus and align on the key objectives of the service, we spent some time engaging with:

• a peer supporter who had participated in the pilot and was an advocate for the service model
• participants at a dementia cafe held by a local organisation
• clinical experts in the local health services, including the people running the memory clinic
• local general practitioners (GPs)

The key questions we were exploring were:

• what profile of users the service should target in its initial phase
• whether there were enough local people functioning in daily life with a dementia diagnosis, who had an appetite for supporting others adjusting to life post diagnosis
• what would be helpful as a 'thank you' token for peer supporters
• what would be the main referral routes into the service
• on what complementary support provision the service could count to face the needs of people coming through

The most relevant insights were:

• although there was significant need in the area, a number of factors including the stigma associated with dementia in some of the local ethnic communities meant that the service should engage in an outreach campaign to reach the most needy.
• the prospective peer supporters were excited about this opportunity to give something back. They were happy to get their expenses reimbursed, but did not want any payments they received to affect their benefit entitlements.
• it was essential to design for the eventuality that peer supporters may need to take breaks from their support relationships if they became unwell.
• the role of the service coordinator needed to strike the right balance of interaction with supporters, people being supported and other local services. Initially, this would require intense involvement to learn and iterate on the model. Supplementary coordination capacity should be sourced from partners to support the initial phases.
• coordination around the sharing of information with key services, such as the memory clinic and referring GPs, was important, both to maximise impact and to have an opportunity to evidence it in a longer term business case.

Define

To support us in describing the service model that the delivery partners had in mind, we created personas for a supported person and a peer supporter.

Then we mapped their journeys step by step, paying particular attention to the moments before and after each of their meetings. The journey maps helped us to test some of our assumptions, for example how long a support journey should last or how long should pass between the first and the second meeting, and put some key details into focus, for example the timing and nature of the training for supporters or the 'check in' conversations with the service coordinator at various points in the journey.

Design

We were then ready to use the service blueprint as a tool to map out and prioritise the processes and functions that needed to be put in place before the service went live.

Alongside the description of a service model, we also worked on defining an outcome framework and identifying indicators and targets, as well as sketching an enquiry frame for an evaluation that was aimed at establishing a longer term business model for the service.
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Finally, we created a 'Service at a glance' compass to recap the key component of our service compass, across multiple strategic axes ranging from target users and key service activities to key players and outcome areas. This would serve as a guide as the service prototype went live and started on the learning and iteration loops that would follow.