Involvement
Involvement Partner Activity
Involvement Partners (IPs) are people with lived experience of our services, either as patients or family/carers, who participate in the planning, design, and improvement of services. IPs bring their unique perspective, helping services understand how it feels to receive care and how services can better meet patient's, carers, and family's needs, building the quality and safety approaches to what we do. The Trust offers opportunities for people with lived experience to get involved in a range of ways, including as patient representatives in meetings, involvement groups (e.g. the Youth Impact Board and the Patient Carer & Family Reference Group), Quality Improvement projects, recruitment of staff and sharing stories and experience as part of staff training or induction.
Participation is growing and this year we have seen a 60% increase in the number of registered Involvement Partners, with 214 individuals registered as at May 2025.
Opportunities for involvement have grown significantly, especially in Corporate Services (This includes Trust-wide pieces of work as well as staff recruitment panels) and the Mental Health Care Group, particularly focussing on work that is related to the Trust's Integrated Improvement Plan. In Community Health and Specialist Services there has been a small number of opportunities, but this represents a sizeable percentage increase compared to last year. We currently don't record the data of our patients in our Forensic inpatient settings; however, we will work with the Forensic Care Group to ensure parity across all Care Groups and improved recording over the forthcoming year.
- Corporate Services Involvement opportunities 276 - (150% increase)
- Mental Health Care Group 110 - (16% increase)
- Community Care Group 11 - (80% increase)
Demographic Information
Involvement Partners share a range of demographic information, and we can see that we have an even spread across the age groups with our largest cohort of Involvement Partners coming from the 18-25 age group. We have more women registered than other gender categories (55% women, 28% men, 15% undisclosed and 3% others). Our ethnicity data show that we have the majority, at 76% who are White British, and just over 6 % Black and 3 % who do not want to share this data. Looking back to last year we can see slight improvements in gender and ethnic diversity although hearing from and involving the diverse communities the Trust serves remains a priority. Work is taking place to strengthen links with local organisations including, Partners in Mind (ICB Lived Experience Group), Framework Housing - Creating Better Futures, and Healthwatch Nottinghamshire.
How are we involving people with lived experience?
- Over the past year, Nottinghamshire Healthcare has established the Patient, Carer & Family Reference Group, bringing together people with lived experience from across its services. This strategic group meets monthly to review and support improvements outlined in the Integrated Improvement Plan, following the NoF4 findings, CQC investigations, and Themis report. It complements the Trust's existing Staff Reference Group. The group's remit and purpose were co-developed through collaboration between patients, carers, Trust staff, and Healthwatch Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. It currently has 22 members, with recruitment ongoing to ensure a wide range of voices are heard. Members are actively involved in key Trust meetings, including the Evidence & Assurance Group, the Community Improvement Group, and the Integrated Improvement Board. The group is chaired by one of its members, who is supported to set the agenda and plan future work. It is also part of a pilot for Paid Involvement.
- Our Patient and Carer Information Group meets weekly. This group supports how the Trust communicates with patients, carers, and families. They have worked closely with the Transformation Team, offering support to several pieces of work including the Crisis Line, patient letters, and general information materials. They have also contributed to Waiting Well documents, Pet safety guidance for home visits, Patient safety information and guidelines for colleagues on responding well to a Care Opinion story. This group is a good starting point for those new to involvement and participation, offering a safe and supportive space to build confidence. Looking ahead, the group will be working more closely with the Trust's Patient Information Team to explore new ways of engaging more people.
- The Trust is part of the national Culture of Care programme, currently running on four adult mental health inpatient wards. A Participation Lead with lived experience has been appointed to work alongside project teams, helping patients and carers shape meaningful changes. So far, over 200 co-produced ideas have been developed, with the first implemented change focusing on patient preferences for observations.
- Involvement Partners and colleagues from various clinical teams have collaborated to improve how calls to the Clinical Access Line are handled. The group have created a range of proposals to improve both patient and colleague experiences including call options, waiting messages, initial triage conversations and the assessment process if referred onward. Future sessions will focus on raising awareness of the line among both the public and colleagues.
- As part of the ongoing improvement work around Local Mental Health Teams (LMHT), the Trust is collaborating with Partners in Mind, a system-wide co-production group, to formalise how we will work together going forward. Partners in Mind representatives already attend Community Improvement Group meetings hosted by the Trust and LMHT planning days, where they help present feedback and identify future co-production projects.
- Children, Young People and Families host a Young Person's Involvement Group (14-18) each month and a Parent and Carer Involvement Group each month. The groups have worked on various resources, including a Welcome Pack for families who are new to Children and Young People's Services and an appointment template letter for young people which is more visually appealing than traditional letters.
- This year has seen the Youth Impact Board launch. Created in response to young people's feedback, the Youth Impact Board (ages 16-24) has co-designed its structure, including terms of reference, recruitment guidance, and designing a 'How we operate' guide. They have also been instrumental in moving the agenda forward in paid involvement, being the first group in the Trust's pilot. The Youth Impact Board recently held its first formal meeting, which they planned, chaired, and documented themselves, with services from across the Children, Young People and Families care unit reporting in.
- Within the Forensic Care Group, the involvement of patients happens across a range of ward-based community meetings, and care stream or hospital wide patient forums:
- Within Wathwood the patients chair the forum meeting. A monthly Forensic Care Group Involvement meeting happens where patients and staff come together, on Teams, to share activities they have undertaken, ward and hospital life and achievements made by patients. They have discussed and help to shape activity on topics such as Restricted Practice and the Integrated Improvement Plan, to name a few. This meeting is creating a forward plan of the topics and issues they want to collaborate on or hear more about.
- Arnold Lodge has been forging the way with supporting patients to get involved with a Story of Hope and Recovery a former patient who is living a successful life in the community returned to share their journey. This first-hand experience of recovery, resilience, and reintegration provided hope and encouragement to current patients, reinforcing the message that recovery is achievable.
- A great initiative by Senior Leadership Team, for the first time supported a patient to attend the Senior Leadership meeting. This opportunity allowed them to voice concerns on behalf of the patient community and work collaboratively with the leadership team.
- Four patients from the Personality Pathway, have been working with staff at Arnold Lodge and Rampton Hospital, to look at how the treatment models in the two hospitals complement each other, and how things could work better for the benefit of future patients.
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