28 September 2020
In 2019, the Quality Assurance team in partnership with the People Participation Team launched a pioneering programme designed to recognise excellence and support improvement in delivering the standards of care that matter most to our service users. The programme has been designed with the Trust’s core values at heart, placing the service user at the heart of what we do.
We started back in 2017 with an idea to combine the two well-established concepts: accreditation and experts by experience. The work began with developing the process that could work for our clinical services and easily embraced by our service users.
Since the start of our Service user accreditation programme we have seen an amazing increase in the engagement and willingness to take part, all of which motivated the team to put forward an application for the Patient Experience National Network Awards (PENNA). We were entered into two categories: ‘Measuring, Reporting and Acting’ and the second category: ‘Using Insight for Improvement’.
Our overall position in the competing groups was as follows:
Using Insight for Improvement – Finalists
Measuring, Reporting and Acting – Runners up (2nd place)
Although we were not awarded first place, winning a runner up position was still a huge achievement and experience for the team. The ability to come so far could not have been possible without the help and dedication of our Service Users who continuously put forward the effort and enthusiasm to see the projects through. Our service users are at the heart of this project and continue to help drive and develop the programme significantly each year.
Whilst ELFT celebrate this achievement, we also highly celebrate our service users, their effort, time and dedication towards the development of this project. We will continue to share victory with each service user that has ever joined our programme and those who will join in future as it has been a wonderful journey so far….