About the SHAPE project

What is this project about?

At the heart of the Bucks SHAPE 50 Plus project is the concept of improving services through community engagement. The work has the key objective to learn lessons and develop a foundation for good practice guidelines based on the engagement of local authorities, elected council members and service providers with groups and individuals in the community.

How will we do this?

The project is going to focus on growing local community led transport projects, with a focus on giving greater access to heath and social care in its broadest sense, such as accessing pharmacies, attending appointments at GP surgeries or hospitals, visiting loved ones, getting to your exercise classes. In addition, having easily accessible local  transport will improve users well-being in other ways by allowing them to get out and about to do their shopping, take outings, get to their interest clubs or societies, visit friends, link to near-by towns and make the link with other forms of transport. In addition to the project work itself, a clear objective is to learn the lessons about engaging and involving the community in the process itself.

A core group has been set up to develop best practice for community involvement in service improvement through training and a small number of practical projects under the umbrella of a programme called Bucks SHAPE (Services Having All People Engaged). Service design consultancy Engine is supporting us in the process of improving our services.