How we involve people
We strongly believe that our service users, patients, carers and families, colleagues, volunteers and public, play a vital role in contributing and developing how we deliver services now and, in the future, and that their lived experience is essential in placing people at the centre of all we do.
Our Involving People policy outlines how we want everyone to feel valued and welcome to get involved and at all levels and all stages of our service design and improvement.
The Trust has a dedicated Participation Team, as well as lived experience roles and patient advocates who support people to be involved in a wide range of short, medium, and long-term projects, using four different levels of engagement, from providing advice, guidance, and facilitation right through to organising large scale events and public consultation.
- 112 involvement events: Supporting developments such as Trust strategy and values, changes in rehabilitation services, trauma informed approach, and the design and build of new wards
- 600 engagement contacts.
- System working: Continued to work closely with wider system providers, partners, and colleagues to provide an intuitive, proactive response to service change and development through strong participation.
- Every Voice Patient Guardian: New pilot role supporting service users in inpatient services come forward and speak about areas that could improve their experience.
- Over 50 interview panels supported by experts by experience.
- Lived experience: Recruiting people with lived experience is a key focus and something we have started this year with two new lived experience leads for quality improvement projects and patient partners that support patients on our wards to speak up and have a voice that is heard.
Wider engagement activities
Throughout the year, the Trust has supported and facilitated a wide range of wider engagement activities
that involved:
- Regular focus groups
- Personality and Complex Trauma Reference Group – the group work together with the clinical team to support the delivery of good quality care and help to co-produce leaflets, support group activities and feedback.
- Adult Eating Disorders Involvement Group – the group meets to help and support the service to deliver good quality care and have supported the development of occupational therapy and dietetics pathways.
- Mental Health Liaison Steering Group – The group supports the service team and have been commended for the work they have produced and showcase their best practice to other organisations.
- Building Together Focus Group (BTFG) the group supports the development of the new adult mental health wards and have been instrumental in the design, build and furnishing of our two new mental health wards in Lincoln, with work starting on designing and building a new unit in Boston. In June 2023 the work of the group was recognised nationally by winning the Service User Engagement Award at the National Mental Health Design Awards 2023.
- Trauma Informed Care Community of Practice - A quarterly group consisting of staff, GPs, community partners and people with lived experience that comes together to share personal experiences, reflect on practices, and help improve care.
- Right Care, Right Person Expert by Experience Group - A recent lived experience focus set up to help inform the working partnership between the Trust, Lincolnshire Police, East Midlands Ambulance Service and local authorities to identify how to implement the new national policing approach and continue to meet the needs of our local population.
- Mental Health Co-production Network - Set up to support the development of the Community Mental Health Programme. It provides a great opportunity to have direct influence on the development of new mental health services in Lincolnshire that will benefit individuals and their communities. Feedback helps to shape mental health delivery at both a primary and secondary care level.
- Dementia services - We have engaged widely with local communities, staff, carers and patients about a pilot of a new hospital at home approach and extended closure of a dementia ward in Grantham. Feedback from this engagement will be used to inform future developments and how the service
will work in the future which will be formally
consulted on in 2024. - Traveller Communities Wellbeing Link Working - Throughout the year we have supported Traveller communities across the county and linked in with system wide partners to improve access and raise awareness of any health inequalities with a dedicated Traveller link worker role. In September 2023 we received recognition for this best practice in the NHS Race and Health Observatory report; Inequalities in Mental Health Care for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Communities.
- Children and young people transformation – As part of large-scale transformational change in our children and young people services the team have supported the initial engagement on how children, young people and their families feel about current service provision and what more they would like to see. The team are also supporting the continued work as this progress and several specific workstreams to engage on specialised aspects of the transformation including Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) Pathway.
The Participation Team currently have a database of people interested in being involved in the future development and improvement of services and regularly share opportunities to be involved.
You can express your interest on being added to this mailing list by emailing lpft.involvement@nhs.net
Becoming a member of our organisation also provides you with more information on what the Trust is doing and involvement opportunities and you can read more about what it means to be a member and the role of our Council of Governors later in this report.
“For me, membership of the group is a privilege, a greatly enjoyable and life enhancing experience. To be made to feel that my views, and those of the other Experts by Experience on the group carry more weight than those of the professionals around the table is both uplifting and flattering. As for the new unit at Lincoln, I was expecting excellent, but I got fantastic! All in all, a wonderful experience. Thank you to all involved.” - Member of building together focus group
