Posted on: 2 October 2024
Our 2024 Expert by Experience Celebration Event
Last June (2023) we had the pleasure and privilege of hosting our inaugural Expert by Experience (EbE) celebration event. This event celebrated the work and involvement of our EbE colleagues and their time working with CNWL. Our aim at CNWL is to have 100% EbE involvement on all improvement projects; therefore, the work of our EbE colleagues is vital and deserves to be celebrated.
As a result, we are very pleased to announce we will be hosting our Second ‘in-person’ EbE Celebration Event on Monday 18 November. In the spirit of co-production, we asked our EbE colleagues to vote for their preferred venue; as well as asking for any feedback and input regarding things such as accessibility considerations.
The purpose of the event is to recognise, celebrate, and learn what the input of service users and carers mean to improvement at CNWL. During the last few EbE forums, the QI Team have worked with our EbE colleagues to understand exactly what they wanted out of the day and how we could best celebrate their work.
A good portion of the morning will be dedicated to networking and getting to know one another. It's always useful to understand each other’s experience and what we can offer to the work we do, from the experiences we have had.
A key feature of the day will be allowing all who attend to feel involved, with a key request from one of our EbE colleagues to “have fun!” So, as with any EbE work, co-production will be key to crafting the best day possible.
But even with this in mind, it would still be great to make the most of having our colleagues in one room. Looking back on last year, the value and learning that was derived from the panel discussion led by our EbE colleagues Sandra Jayacodi and Janet Seale was greatly appreciated. We’re pleased to say that many of our EbEs have already expressed interest in being part of a panel discussion for this year’s event.
We are sure our colleagues will be happy to know that our EbE awards will be presented once again. However, news on exactly what categories will be getting awarded will follow shortly. So watch this space!
As ever, between now and the celebration event we welcome and encourage and input into making the day a success. The heart of the day will be celebrating our EbE colleagues and the awesome work that they do at CNWL.
Case study 1: Harrow recovery pathway, art project
This project is one of several EbE projects in Harrow CNWL. There is a recovery pathway project where each week there is an art project, allowing service users including Francesca Hall to drop in for an hour and a half to produce artwork that will eventually be displayed to improve the environment at Bentley House. This environment has been proven to promote the well-being and mental health of many service users.
The improvement work is six weeks (now eight weeks) therapy group programme as step two therapy intervention in our community mental health team, the group started in September 2023 and has now run for four cycles. The group focus on providing a structured and supportive environment where service users to learn sensory base interventions to help individual to regulate, to understand their triggers and be more aware of their sensory needs to promote overall wellbeing and mental health. Two service users have co-produced the group programme with the Head Occupational Therapist and have co-facilitated the group weekly.
The service users who were recruited in through Harrow’s service user’s involvement group were involved in collaborative decision-making, planning for the group cycle and involved in post group reviews sessions providing feedback on how to improve the group structure, materials and sessions.
The service users have found the experience of delivering this group rewarding and empowering. It was a way to move away from the ‘patient role’ to the ‘expert by experience role’
EbE Francesca Halls advised that “service users have a unique perspective on how to look at what works for you as you have tried in your own recovery journey. Supporting the development of this project has helped my confidence, has helped develop my skills, moving from the role of patient to a co-facilitator and expert by experience. I had the opportunity to suggest ideas on how to develop and improve the group programme and this made me feel that my opinion was very valued. I felt part of the team”.
EbEs felt supported in the programme, they have been provided the opportunity to have regular debrief and check in with Head Occupational Therapist and training and provision of group plan and material is always provided prior each group sessions, pre-session and post session debrief is always offered.
One of the EbEs in this project, who prefers to remain anonymous, stated that “it's beneficial to start a group with familiar people as it gives you confidence to facilitate future sessions”.
In this project, EbE advised that it's important for the project participants to regularly come together to discuss a
clear idea of what they would like to deliver. Meeting before and after each session and each cycle is crucial. Learning as they go along is also important, as each time the group is run, they learn something different that enables them to deliver improved sessions. The data has shown an improvement in attendees' well-being, motivating them to continue the project.
Case study 2: Brent Older Adult Dialog+
DIALOG + care plans have been recently implemented across the Older Adult Community Mental Health Team in CNWL, aiming to help the patient and clinician to structure a conversation to explore and address the patient’s specific needs. The older adult population present a unique set of challenges compared to the general adult population. As a result of these challenges, it has been very time consuming for staff to complete care plans, and the quality was frequently compromised.
Our aim was to implement a more time efficient and high-quality template system for DIALOG + care plans. We also aimed to facilitate high-quality patient interaction, prompting discussion with patients and carers and signposting to local and national resources, improving equity for the older adult population.
We met with the Expert by Experience forum members both prior to and post template implementation in March and July 2024. On the board were representatives with a service user background, nursing background, all with specific experience in Quality Improvement implementation.
It was extremely helpful to hear the experience and thoughts from those who had direct experience with writing and receiving care plans and also from those who had worked with different patient population groups in mental health services - indicating that the challenges we were aiming to overcome were similar in other teams.
Several helpful suggestions, and proposed solutions for potential challenges, were made. We were given ideas about how to encourage staff behaviour alteration using the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation – Behaviour (COM-B) model which provides framework for assessing the factors influencing any behaviour based on the interaction of three core components – capability, opportunity, and motivation. We were signposted to useful resources such as NHS Future Forum, so that we could identify whether other trusts had carried out a similar project, so we could learn from others experiences. The service user representatives were able to give us some very helpful guidance about what specific questions to ask the patients, to ensure our care plans were helpful to them. When we presented to the forum again (after the template implementation), we received positive feedback which was very encouraging. Overall, we found the EbE forum an extremely valuable and helpful resource.
If you want to feature in any future editions of the EbE newsletter, or have any feedback for us, please contact us here: cnw-tr.improvementsupport@nhs.net
Editor: John Francis William Apted