Involvement to impact: Showing how public and users add value to services

2008 Conference

The key theme of this presentation is that involving service users in the control of project or service development makes the process so efficient that more of their wishes can be incorporated without increasing costs.

We will present the results of user-led research and evaluation studies into the design of a new secure mental health unit in the UK. We will discuss our analysis of the results, in particular how our active involvement of users led to innovations and improvements (such as the Safevent window, designed for this unit and now marketed across the country). We will identify lessons others can use to develop their own practice, and show how we in turn have learned from others.

We will discuss how the financing and timing of projects and developments sometimes makes it difficult to get involved and be listened to, and we will show where the public and service users can find the evidence to back up their involvement by demonstrating that it can make efficiency savings while adding value.

Our main aim is to inspire people to get their voices heard to improve services and open up new possibilities.