Naomi Graham, Vital Link Coordinator, writes about a new adult mental health service user and carer engagement body in Lambeth and how we’re helping improve adult mental health services in the borough.

A key priority for NHS Lambeth in its five-year commissioning strategy is to reduce the impact of mental illness on individuals and the community. When they realised they needed to engage customers, they turned to Metropolitan Support Trust (MST) – our specialist care and support provider – for help.

Facilitating meaningful dialogue

MST places an emphasis on involving customers throughout the organisation. It is this experience that convinced NHS Lambeth to commission our services to help them understand how to improve adult mental health services in the borough. They tasked MST with setting up and facilitating a service user and carer engagement body that would create meaningful dialogue between themselves, mental health service providers, service users and carers.

Engaging customers

NHS Lambeth had previous unsuccessful attempts to set up similar groups. The aim was to widen the net, and provide a way for service users and carers who had not been engaged in formal service user/carer consultation to get involved and have their say.

Through promotional activity we recruited a few interested members to the engagement body, and they helped to recruit more members. We now have 16 services users and carers who work together to collect the views and feedback of other service users and carers in the borough. This not only spreads consultation further and makes it more meaningful, but also provides members with skills that aid recovery.

Social inclusion, well-being, employment

Throughout the process of information collection, Vital Link representatives and volunteers are provided with opportunities to engage in social networking, access free training and get back into employment.

The recovery principles on which the service is founded enables service user and carer representatives to set out their goals and visions in a personal development plan. This means that the experience they develop in the role can be channelled towards moving into work, training, employment or other services, with support from MST.

Some of the tasks representatives carry out:

• set up focus groups to gather the views and opinions of other service users and carers on the mental health services they receive
• get feedback on changes and developments taking place in mental health across the borough
• promote the aims of the group to other service users and carers, and encourage them to get involved.

As they do this, we will provide support and training to help develop their skills and confidence. By establishing strong, sustainable links with vocational services throughout the borough, we will provide clear pathways back into work and/or volunteering.

Meeting commissioner needs

Service user and carer priorities were established during Vital Link’s launch event in March 2010 and include:

• addressing issues around inadequate after-hours care
• preventing people from falling through gaps in services
• motivating people to get into and sustain training and employment.

The priorities form the basis of the group’s 12-month work plan, and are balanced with the requirements for user involvement within the work streams that form part of NHS Lambeth’s Mental Health Improvement Programme (MHIP) and improved care pathways.

Improving life together

MST offers a range of care and support services and innovative services such as Vital Link. For information, contact Mark Austin on 020 7501 2202.

If you would like to find out more about Vital Link, please email Naomi Graham