Lived Experience and Co-Production
North London Forensic Collaborative Commissioning Hub places co-production with patients and staff at the centre of all its activities and commissioning responsibilities.
Patient Council
NLFC Patient Council that consists of inpatients from adult secure services in each of the five provider Trusts and is a sub-group of the Board. The Patient Council meets weekly via Microsoft Teams and is facilitated by Inclusion Unlimited, a lived experience voluntary organisation that specialises in co-production.
The partnership between Inclusion Unlimited and NLFC is in place with the aim of making positive change, breaking down stigma, improving quality of service and improving care.
The Patient Council’s main function is to represent the voices of inpatients and play a central role in the co-design of quality improvements and new innovative service developments, in collaboration with ward staff and the Commissioning Hub.
Patient Council members are provided with training and supervision, which can lead to a career pathway into Peer Engagement Worker paid roles within the Commissioning Hub, as well as further Expert by Experience roles within the community.
A key achievement of the Patient Council has been the design and implementation of a patient led ‘Speak Up Campaign’ to support service users in raising concerns, to feel empowered to speak up and confident that any issues raised are taken seriously. A consultation with service users took place to find out if they knew how to raise a concern, any barriers they encountered and what support was required to make the process easier. A key outcome of this has been the design and implementation of Patient Empowerment Boxes, which are secure feedback boxes that will be visible on all our inpatient wards, forming part of a patient led Speak Up campaign led by services for service users.
Peer Engagement Workers
NLFC has a Peer Engagement Worker team which includes five paid staff who have lived experience of forensic or inpatient mental health services, recruited to work alongside case managers in a quality assurance role. The team has recently been expanded to include a community Peer Engagement Worker to extend this role across all inpatient and community services.
Using their lived experience, Peer Engagement Workers build rapport with service users and gather important insights from wards. They also provide a strong communicative link between service users, providers and the commissioning hub. They are present on wards and in community teams speaking directly to patients about their care experience, to ensure that the voice of service users is central to all aspects of quality improvement and service development. Peer Engagement Workers also assist with reviews of restrictive interventions, conduct service reviews and report into contract meetings.
Learning Disability and Autism Lived Experience Model
NLFC works in partnership with service users, providers and staff in its adult secure services to design, deliver and embed a user involvement model that empowers and elevates the voices of people who use services, ensuring that they are central to the way services are commissioned and quality assured.
By building on its existing expert by experience model within adult inpatient secure settings, NLFC is creating a lived experience model for learning disability and autism inpatient and community services. To support this process, the Commissioning Hub is working collaboratively with a multi specialist partnership of organisations offering a depth of experience in designing and delivering peer roles, leading national best practice in co-production and embedding lasting transformation in the NHS that centres on lived experience.
What our Patient Council and Peer Engagement Workers say:
“The Patient Council gives myself and my peers a voice. We can express ourselves about things that are happening in the hospital, and we can help to make positive changes.” (Patient Council Member)
“We are here to help every service user, its highly refreshing to help each other …we are one team with different minds.” (Patient Council Member)
“As a Peer Engagement Worker, I have helped to build rapport, bridging the gap between service users and professionals.” (Peer Engagement Worker)
“As a team I would like us to continue positively impacting the lives of current and future service users. To create an environment and service that is working towards the progress and sustenance of a positive mental well-being for all service users in our care.” (Peer Engagement Worker)
