Disrupting Health and Social Care by Design

In the UK, over six million people are unpaid informal carers for an ill, frail family member, or a friend who can’t manage to live independently, or whose health or wellbeing would deteriorate without their help. This saves the UK taxpayer over £119 billion a year (Carers UK, 2011). Although the role and experience of informal carers is unique to their situation, it is known that their health suffers and that they have an increased rate of mental and physical health problems. This paper describes an on-going collaborative project between the first two authors and a carer organisation in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. The work presented here illustrates unique and innovative disruptive design interventions that re-imagine social and health care through participative design events. The paper will present some of the current findings from this on-going research and indicate how disruptive design innovation can support the development and delivery of radical future health and social care provision.