Service user and carer involvement and engagement

We are looking for people with lived experience of using mental health services, either as a patient or a carer, to tell their stories as part of an education session that we run for future doctors. 

The role outline below provides more information about this involvement activity. For more information, please email our medical education department via:

pcn-tr.medicalworkforce@nhs.net

Information about the project and the purpose of the role

This is an opportunity for people that have used our Trust’s mental health services to tell their story as part of the training future doctors receive. We would like people with lived experience of using mental health services, either as a patient or a carer, to tell their stories as part of a session that we run for second year medical students. We run these sessions for the University of Manchester and they are called Early Clinical Experience visits.

Early Clinical Experience visits are snap shots for second year medical students to support and develop their understanding of the profession. The aim of the sessions that we run is to give the students insight and understanding about what is involved in psychiatry as a specialty.

Each of the students will attend a half-day with us. Within that there is a 45 minute session in which people with lived experience provide the students with their personal account of what it is like to live with, or care for someone, with mental illness that has accessed mental health services. The people that provide their lived experience in that 45 minute session are the Patient and Carer Educators.

Through sharing their experiences, the Patient and Carer Educators will help the students to:

• Develop their empathy and understanding of how it feels to live with mental illness or care for someone that does, and how it feels for those people to access services in a variety of clinical settings (both mental health services and other health services).
• Reflect on their own understanding and how they can develop that understanding through teaching, which will be captured through the evaluation process the students participate in.   

The sessions will be facilitated by a Consultant Psychiatrist, who will support the Patient and Carer Educators. There will usually be two Patient and Carer Educators per session.  

The Patient and Carer Educators will meet with the facilitator before and after the sessions to make sure that they feel comfortable and supported. There will be a break during the session. This means that the time commitment per session will be approximately:

• 15 minutes pre-meet between the Patient and Carer Educator and facilitator
• 55 minute education session with the students (45 minutes of storytelling and questions, with a 10 minute break in the middle).
• 15 minutes debrief between the Patient and Carer Educator and facilitator

We will offer payment for your participation of £15 per session (based on our hourly participation rate of £10 per hour), plus payment at the same rate for any training, meetings relating to the role, plus agreed expenses (such as travel if you would prefer to participate at a Trust site).

Within the 45 minutes of storytelling and questions, the Patient and Carer Educators will first describe their own experience for approximately 5 or 10 minutes, before the students are then invited to ask questions.

The sessions will be with 12 students and will take place virtually, via Zoom. If Patient and Carer Educators would prefer doing the sessions from a Trust site, where they can sit with the facilitator and use a Trust computer, that will be arranged.

Our Patient and Carer Educators will have the opportunity to speak with a named individual outside the session times to offer any feedback, discuss any issues that may arise, address any questions or explore how the participation is impacting on them.

We will also be arranging group meetings with our Patient and Carer Educators, to seek their feedback, to develop the role and ensure it has the maximum possible impact, both for them and the students.  

The online sessions will be secure, confidential and will not be recorded.

Your contribution: the experience, knowledge, attributes and skills that we are looking for

The main purpose of the role is for the Patient and Carer Educators to share their personal story of living with, or caring for a person that lives with, mental illness and how that has impacted on their life and accessing healthcare services.

We are therefore seeking people that:

• Have recently used mental health services or have cared for someone that has. Because of what the role will include, we will not be able to offer the opportunity to a person that is currently detained under the Mental Health Act or is acutely unwell and on an acute care pathway. If you are interested in the role and not sure if this would include you, please do contact us so we can discuss this with you.
• Feel able to contribute to an online group session. This will mean that you will need to have a level of confidence to be open to discussing personal matters in front of a group. You will also need to either be able to use Zoom for online meetings in your own home (or a private space) or attend a Trust site where we can facilitate that.
• Feel able to tell the group about your own experience. You will be supported by a facilitator who is a Consultant Psychiatrist and will need to feel able to share enough of your own experience to help the students develop their understanding of how it feels to live with a mental illness or care for someone that does. We would also like you to be able to share how it feels to access services in a variety of clinical settings (both mental health services and other health and support services) when living with mental illness or caring for someone that does. You will not have to answer any questions that you do not feel comfortable doing so; the facilitator will support you and will speak with you about this before each session.
• Be able to respect the confidentiality of those involved in your care. We will ask that you do not share the names of specific members of staff or the specific teams that have been involved in your care.
• Have self-awareness to be able to identify when the involvement may have an impact upon your own well-being. We will support you and never ask you to participate if that is having a detrimental impact on you.
• Have time management skills. We will send you reminders of sessions, but it is important that you are able to participate in the sessions when you have agreed to do so. We recognise that things do happen though and if ever you cannot go ahead with an agreed session, just let us know.

We will be offering sessions to talk to people that are interested in being Patient and Carer Educators and to help you think about how you may want to talk about your experience via teams meetings as below

• 28/09/21 between 12:30pm - 1.00pm
• 28/09/21 between 4.00pm - 5.00pm   
• 01/10/21 between 4.00pm - 5.00pm

Further information

If you have any questions about the project that you would like to discuss, please contact either:

• Dr Roshelle Ramkisson, Consultant Psychiatrist and Director of Medical Education – rramkisson@nhs.net
• Dr Ade Akinola, Consultant Psychiatrist and Associate Director of Medical Education - adeola.akinola@nhs.net

Dr Ramkisson and Dr Akinola are the doctors leading on this project and will be able to answer any questions about the role.

If you agree to be one of our Patient and Carer Educators, they will speak with you before your first session to make sure you feel fully supported.

Any information that we keep about you for this project (such as your contact details, information about who you are and our correspondence arranging sessions) will be held securely, confidentially and entirely separately from your clinical records.

At the conclusion of the project, we will ask you to tell us about your experience of participating, so we can understand if you have enjoyed it, what you have taken away from it and what we could do differently in the future. We will also share the feedback we get from the students, so that you can understand the impact that you have had on their education and development.

Available support

As noted above, you will speak with Dr Ramkisson or Dr Akinola before starting and have the opportunity to participate in a session to explore how you may want to talk about your experience. In addition to this, there will be ongoing support:

• On the day: before, during and after the session, the facilitator will be there if at any point you do not feel comfortable or have any questions;
• In between sessions we will check in with you;
• During and after the project, we will arrange groups for our Patient and Carer Educators to reflect on their experience and think about if we would want to work differently in anyway in the future; and
• You will have a member of staff as a named point of contact that you can contact to discuss your participation at any point during the project,

The questions that the students may ask will be without any judgement and your participation will not be linked to any care and treatment that you may receive from our Trust or any other services. The only exception to this would be if, during the course of your participation, we were worried about your safety or someone else’s. In those circumstances we may need to speak with your clinical team (if you are open to one). We will also ask for emergency contact details. We will speak with you about this before any of the sessions and answer any questions that you may have about how we will safeguard your safety.

We are looking for service users and carers to join our quality and safety panel for Stockport, Tameside and Glossop. The role outline below provides more information about this involvement activity. If you are interested in this role, please complete this expression of interest form and email it to involvement.penninecare@nhs.net

Information about the quality and safety panel

The quality and safety panel (made up of a number of staff who work for Pennine Care) is a weekly meeting that reviews incidents (when things go wrong) submitted to the south care network (Tameside, Glossop and Stockport) the previous week.

The quality and safety panel then review and critically analyse the reports submitted, check that patients and families have been involved and that we have said sorry and listened to their concerns. The panel checks that the reports have met the terms of reference (what we said we’d look at) and that there is an improvement plan for any issues arising. The panel also looks at any new complaints arising within Tameside, Glossop and Stockport services.

Full support will be offered if you wish to join the panel, as we understand that some of the incidents and reports reviewed can be distressing in nature.

The discussions will relate to serious and distressing matters, including patient deaths and incidents where patients have suffered serious harm. This will therefore be a challenging role, but we are very keen to have service users and carers with lived experience to be part of our discussions.

Main purpose of the role

To be active participant in our quality meetings, providing your insight and input into discussions about serious incidents, complaints and the actions being taken to improve our services.

Your contribution

• Ask new or different questions to those initially posed based on their own experiences of our services and how it feels to be either the person receiving care from our Trust or the carer of someone that does.
• Advocate for patients and carers views to be included in decision making so that they can speak for themselves.
• Provide another pair of eyes and a different perspective from outside the culture and other influences within our organisation and make sure our thinking is not limited to the boundaries of our own organisation.
• Provide a non-professionalised view and constructive challenge to add richness to discussions about serious incidents, complaints and the actions we are taking to improve our services.

Experience, knowledge and skills we are looking for

• A current or recent (within last 12 months) Pennine Care service user or carer for a Pennine Care service user.
• To respect that the purpose of the role will not be to address specific concerns or issues arising from their own experience.
• Ability to read complex documents and identify pertinent points.
• Confident speaker, willing to offer views and constructive challenge in a group discussion, or to work with Chair to raise points on their behalf.
• Emotional resilience and self-awareness, able to discuss distressing and sensitive incidents and matters and identify where this is impacting on own emotional wellbeing.
• Time management and ability to commit to requirements of role, including diary management to ensure adequately prepared for meetings.
• Ability to work within relevant Trust policies and protocols

Lived experience members will be provided with an induction and ongoing developmental support.

Desirable attributes

It would be desirable that the person has experience, knowledge or understanding of being involved in an untoward incident occurring with our services.

Further information

The involvement and contribution of lived experience members will be reviewed periodically to identify and learn of any support required, difficulties faced and improvements/enhancements gained.

Available support

The Chair of the meeting, or someone they nominate, will provide support to the lived experience member before, during and after the meeting. This will be done in accordance with the co-produced ‘principles of supporting attendance at meetings’.

In addition to the ongoing emotional and developmental support, on starting the role there will be an induction to support the person undertaking the role.

For more information about this role, please contact:

Matt Walsh, South Division (Stockport & Tameside) Network Director for Quality, Nursing & Allied Health Professionals

Email: matt.walsh@nhs.net (preferred)

Mobile: 07912 454 285

Are you a relative or friend of someone using our services who has mental health and/or learning difficulties, and do you want to influence how services are delivered and developed? If so, please contact us to learn about our Triangle of Care meetings that take place across our trust.

We hold regular meetings attended by carers and staff to plan and review our progress in meeting the national Traingle of Care standards which are:

1. Carers and the essential role they play are identified at first contact or as soon as possible thereafter.
2. Staff are ‘carer aware’ and trained in carer engagement strategies.
3. Policy and practice protocols re: confidentiality and sharing information are in place.
4. Defined post(s) responsible for carers are in place.
5. A carer introduction to the service and staff is available, with a relevant range of information across the care pathway.
6. A range of carer support services is available.

Please us on 0161 716 3178 or involvement.penninecare@nhs.net for more information.

Read more about the Triangle of Care

About the steering group

The personality disorder steering group will aim to support the development and running of services for people with complex emotional and relational needs and/or a diagnosis of personality disorder across the trust.

Main purpose of the role

As a member of the steering group it is hoped that you will actively contribute and engage with other steering group members to help improve our services and the experiences of people with complex emotional and relational difficulties who use our services as set out in the terms of reference.

Your contribution

• Ask new or different questions to those initially posed based on your own experiences of our services and how it feels to be either the person receiving care from our Trust or the carer of someone that does.
• Advocate for patients and carers views to be included in decision making so that they can speak for themselves.
• Provide another pair of eyes and a different perspective from outside the culture and other influences within our organisation and make sure our thinking is not limited to the boundaries of our own organisation.
• Provide a non-professionalised view and constructive challenge to add richness to discussions and the actions we are taking to improve and develop services.
• Experience, knowledge and skills we are looking for
• Ability to focus on wider views and experiences as well as your own.
• Being able to demonstrate listening and negotiating, with a personal style that is questioning, but not confrontational.
• Working in a problem solving way with others in the group.
• Being able to work with others in a team.
• Being open and respectful to different views, experiences, values and beliefs
• An understanding of equality and diversity.
• A willingness to understand how services are organised and how this impacts on individuals using services and their families / carers.
• Personal experience of receiving support from mental health services in relation to the experience of complex emotional and relational difficulties.

Desirable attributes

• Motivation and commitment to improving the experience of people using mental health services for people with complex emotional and relational difficulties and their families / carers
• Personal experience of receiving support from specific services aimed at helping people with complex emotional and relational difficulties or a family member/carer of someone who does – e.g. psychological therapies, community mental health teams, therapeutic day services

Available support

• Introduction to Pennine Care
• Reasonable adjustments to support your involvement
• Relevant training and support
• Payment for your expertise
• Reimbursement of any pre-agreed out of pocket expenses

For more information about this role, please contact:

Dr Jayne Taylor, Lead Consultant Clinical Psychologist – Adults.

Email: Jayne.taylor19@nhs.net