Achievements

Here are some recent examples of projects we’ve worked on, in partnership with our Experts by Experience (EbE). Having a supportive partnership like this provides a mutual benefit for both the service and EbEs, and has led to improved service outcomes.

Changes to the long-term sickness policy

One of our EbEs raised difficulties they experienced when their clinician unfortunately went on long term sick leave. In bringing this to the LEAG we were able to co-design processes that improves communications ensuring patients are supported. This has now become a service standard and a great example of how service user feedback can build change and improvement.

Creating a patient expectation video

To help support patients while on a waiting list for treatment, we came up with the initiative to make a patient expectation video - to include information on support available whilst waiting, and a refresher on what to expect in their first appointment. We created a first draft and approached our EbEs for their thoughts. They reviewed the video in detail and suggested improvements that could be made to the format - taking the approach of what they would find helpful as a patient. We took all comments on board, adapted the video and presented the final version to EbEs for their approval. This video is now being used as a standard part of our process.

Simplifying our patient emails

One of our EbEs brought up that our patient emails can have a lot of content in, and too much text could be overwhelming to read. It was also mentioned that the bottom of our emails can have a variety of attachments and it’s not always clear what’s what. So with our EbEs we went through each email to check exactly how they are displayed when a patient receives one. We cut down and simplified the information where we could, to make for a much nicer message. We are now mindful of the wording we use, not only in our emails, but in all patient communication.

Role-playing for staff training scenarios

We had the help of an EbE who played the part of a patient for one of our staff training videos. This video was demonstrating a good and bad scenario in a clinical setting. By having the input of an EbE, not only did we have the perspective of a non-member of staff, we had the added benefit of EbE feedback in how we conducted the video.

Reviewing of service marketing materials

We’ve been refreshing our service materials and website content, and wanted to get a sense check on the tone and approach we’re using. We showcased our draft content and asked for our EbEs to think about how the materials would speak to someone who might be looking for mental health support. Following a lot of helpful perspectives and suggestions we were able to make improvements to these drafts, and publish them knowing they had been pre-approved by the right audience.