Our Experts by Experience are people who have lived experience of inpatient services. This is important in because the concept of ‘lived experience’ is often stretched to include people who have experienced mental distress in the community at any point in life.
The regular visits our Experts by Experience undertake at different sites is invaluable. Some of the key benefits are:
- Providing a unique perspective to support quality improvement and culture change.
- Lived experience insight into decision-making ensuring greater support, buy-in and the opportunity to ‘get it right’ for service users.
- Having a finger on the pulse to assist where attention is required on our wards to speak to service users and understand any issues.
We are fortunate to have former service users who are keen to progress from our wards to our workforce where they can use their unique experiences to help others and inform the care we are providing. The role brings benefit to each individual EbyE as they undertake meaningful, paid employment. It also gives hope to those receiving care that recovery is possible and opportunities exist when the time is right for them to forge their own path.
Supporting people to access education, vocational training and work, particularly in paid roles, can help recovery in so many ways, for example building routine and structure to the day, giving a sense of purpose and achievement, delivering access to social relationships, providing a socially valued role and identity, and developing skills in activities of daily living.
This engagement means EbyEs give hope that recovery is possible and our programme helps to get service users back on their feet, back to work and out into the community.
In the summer of 2023, the NHS Confederation visited two of our services – Cygnet Alders Clinic and Cygnet Hospital Taunton, to meet two former service users who have gone on to become Experts by Experience; Natasha Lowe and Lee Millington-Millar.
They also spoke with our Group Clinical Director, Dr Jon Van Niekerk, and our Expert by Experience Lead, Raf Hamaizia, to understand how we have fully embedded co-production across our organisation and the vast benefits that service user involvement brings to the quality of care we offer. You can view the resulting video below.
Expert by Experience Case Studies
By clicking on the links below you can find out more about some of our individual Experts by Experience.