Community mental health transformation co-production

Co-production sits at the heart of the work we’re undertaking for community mental health transformation.

To shape the new service, we have involved people with lived experience, carers, and communities right from the outset, so that they have a voice and to come on this journey with us, as their input will help us design future services. Having their input will ensure the services we develop will meet the needs of our communities, so that we design a seamless service in the future which will be more accessible and personalised.

We will look to follow ‘Nothing about us without us: A co-production strategy for communities, researchers and stakeholders to identify ways of improving health and reducing inequalities’ as much as we can when undertaking any co-production work.

Co-production work we done to date under the transformation programme:

*Please note the following information has been provided by our involvement partners

Pilot on one off personal health budgets (PHBs) for mental health: personal health budgets have been one of the key pieces of work I have been involved with. Starting with the guiding group meetings around how the process would work, I provided ways in which the questions could be asked differently to help improve the way in which staff would ask questions so that it supports a more positive and constructive conversation, focusing on what works well, positives and a strengths-based approach.

I joined staff both at Bradford District and Craven Mind and at Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust in explaining PHBs, and ways to have conversations which focused on the strengths-based approach. Staff had identified how this had improved their relationships with the patients on the ward and had built better therapeutic relationships.

I helped support in designing, creating and gathering information for the evaluation of the pilot at six months, I was able to bring my experience of my own journey to help guide how information was captured, ensuring we were mindful of trauma and avoid bringing up memories which may be difficult, as we asked people to reflect on the changes to their recovery based on the PHB. This allowed meaningful conversations with people and helped build further recovery goals, this has helped people feel empowered to be more included in their own recovery and engagement with services.

Find out more about the pilot on one off personal health budget for mental health.

Substance use steering group: I have cared and supported several people who have faced challenges with substances, I have experience of seeing a lack of connected care and assumptions made about them and their ability to engage or recover. By being involved, I was able to bring my own experience and the experience of those I know to the meetings, I was able to show what would have been useful, and if things were different how much of a difference it could have made.

I was able to suggest different ways of working as a system, to help make sure that we remember we are talking about real people and the challenges in their lives. These people live in our communities and they should be able to access the same support we would, and that we all have a responsibility to make it as easy and simple as possible.

It helped challenge stereotypes and assumptions from staff across different organisations, and helped bring in mutual understanding of how mental health changes can affect someone’s relationship with substances, and how their relationship with substances can impact on their mental health. It helped to recognise people do not fit into boxes and may need support with manging their mental health.

Operational development days: by attending the operational development days myself and others who have been involved with our own lived experience, have been able to talk to lots of different staff from several services and organisations. This has allowed a different kind of conversation to occur focusing on a whole person perspective and holistic approaches to their ongoing recovery and relationship with support.

Attending these days has given the opportunity to share my experiences and points of view with a much wider audience than just healthcare staff I have interacted with, different organisations hve come together to learn and see how things could be different in future. This has created an environment which focuses on person centred recovery and support, recognising the importance of choice and supporting an individual to have a choice in how and who supports them were possible. It provides an opportunity for the patient voice to be heard but also considered and invited within other areas of work also.

Ethnically and culturally diverse communities: being involved in other pieces of work, I was asked if I could help find and support someone to be involved from an ethnically and/or culturally diverse community, to support the tender process of recruiting new specialist support for our diverse communities in Bradford District and Craven. This was a great opportunity for other people to be involved, I suggested a few people who may be interested in the work and then allowed them to decide around being involved, I then offered ongoing support to those who accepted. My support included reviewing paperwork and understanding the tender process. I supported them in accessing systems, reviewing applications and answering questions around their role and their thoughts about each applicant at different stages in the process.

I was able to support this both online and in person, I ensured that they felt confident and had a clear understanding of the process, the expectations and the support available. I was able to work in a way which accommodated their needs and supported them to be involved. Afterwards they expressed their gratitude for the support and advised they would like to be involved more going forward.