The Big Conversation

The Big Conversation about social care

In Nottinghamshire, lots of people need support to live their best life. Social care is personal, emotional, and practical support for people who need it. It works alongside health care.

We know that everyone’s social care experience is different, and the system can feel complicated. We want every person in the county to live in the place they call home with the people and things that they love, in communities where they look out for one another, doing the things that matter to them. This vision for Adult Social Care has been developed by a national movement called Social Care Future.

Every two years we hold a Big Conversation when we ask people who draw on care & support and family carers to tell us about their experience of social care. Building on this work and the co-production of Local Account, the Adult Social Care Strategy, we want to continue to listen and learn.

For each Big Conversation we get an independent organisation to help us. In 2025 we worked with Think Local Act Personal (TLAP), the National Co-Production Advisory Group and again with the local Our Voice strategic co-production group:

A Big Conversation involves us going out and holding listening events across all the districts of Nottinghamshire and a survey. We ask what is working well, what’s not so good and people’s ideas for the future of Adult Social Care. In 2025 we reached out to more diverse people we don’t hear from often.

TLAP have captured feedback from all the listening events, survey and conversations into a report. They also included feedback from wider departmental surveys. We will use the information in the report to develop and refresh our Local Account and the priorities we need to focus on for the future.

You can view the report in different formats:

Find out what people said at our district listening events

Alongside the Big Conversation report we have produced a visual illustration of each of the face-to-face listening event we did across Nottinghamshire. The illustrations highlight the themes we heard from local people and carers who draw upon social care services:

The Nottinghamshire summary summarises the themes we heard across all the listening events we did across Nottinghamshire: