Health and care
Design
This collaborative learning programme with One Devon developed a collective understanding of weight-related challenges at population level, generated deep insights into the problem and identified sustainable, long-term, non-stigmatising solutions for the future, building a credible pathway between this and today’s urgent challenges.

According to the National Food Strategy, nearly one in three adults over 45 in England are classed as living with obesity. Tackling obesity is one of the most complex challenges of our time, with a significant burden being put on individuals as well as on a national health service lacking the resources to deal with the effects.

One Devon, a collaboration of NHS, local authorities and VCSE, commissioned Innovation Unit as a learning partner, and committed to a whole-system approach in addressing this challenge locally.

In April 2023, we launched a 12-month collaborative learning programme under the banner Healthy Devon Learning Labs.

Healthy Devon Learning Labs has already proven a successful case study and brand for whole-system ways of working in Devon, bringing together diverse perspectives and co-creating a shared narrative for obesity. This early work has enabled us to highlight a pathway that starts from a deep reflection of current issues and points to the potential of a different, better future, whilst drawing out clear enabling conditions and areas for change.

"IU's independent role has allowed us to make a huge shift. This is because you are not so ‘steeped' in it and 'living and breathing it' all the time which allowed for objectivity."
Representative from Devon’s local authorities and NHS ICB

The approach

Innovation Unit enabled One Devon to:

  • Generate deep insights grounded in the perspectives of professionals and people with lived experience, through conducting an extensive evidence review and providing staff training in ethnographic research, enabling One Devon to engage with nearly 30 individuals across both lived and professional experience.
     
  • Mobilise energy across multidisciplinary stakeholders to develop a shared ambition for an approach to change, including bringing together 100 system stakeholders from across the region and country as well as leading academics for the Health Devon Learning Conference
     
  • Design and prototype innovative solutions that are building on existing local assets and ‘bright spots’, by establishing the Healthy Devon Prototyping Lab, a collective of 13 Devon-based stakeholders from across health, local authority and VCSFE.
     
  • Set the foundations for system change influencing One Devon’s strategic direction.
"The conference was a real milestone. It created a lot of discussion and brought key people together for a shared understanding. You supported the building of evidence and learning across Devon’s geography."
Public health specialist in Plymouth Council

There is appetite and potential to deepen the work of Healthy Devon Learning Labs in this area as well as to apply its methodology to tackle other persistent health inequalities across the system, a vast majority of which are prevalent across the UK.

Project team
Steph Gamauf smiles at the camera
Steph Gamauf
Senior Innovation Consultant
Christina smiling at the camera. She's a white woman with hair tied up, wearing a black jumper and hoop earrings.
Christina Cornwell
Senior Health Associate
Aviv smiling at the camera. He's a man of colour with short grey hair, wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt
Aviv Katz
Senior Service Design Associate
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