The announcement comes as the Trust marks Co-Production Week (03-07 July) and aims to grow its presence in the community, as well as promoting improved ways of coproducing mental and physical health care in Ealing, Hounslow and Hammersmith and Fulham. Co-production aims to move beyond engagement and consultation through to fully involving patients and service users in service design and changes.
West London Collaborative was formed in 2014 as a WLMHT initiative after Trust staff, service users and carers voted to form an independent community interest company (CIC). Its task was to provide invaluable feedback and use coproduction to tackle issues deemed important to all stakeholders, which included hosting the popular trust wide forum and coproducing specialist projects. The Collaborative works to hold the trust to account and ensures that the voices of those who use services have equal value in decision making processes and work to jointly find solutions to difficult problems.
The partnership builds on significant work already done with the Collaborative and staff to engage all stakeholders in local services transformation, work on shared decision making in medication, restrictive practice and hosting two national conferences. The new contract will see innovative projects that include partnerships with The Kings Fund and the Action Learning Centre. Service users, carers, staff, GPs, commissioners and voluntary service providers will continue to have access to WLC’s regular coproduction training workshops and master classes.
Carolyn Regan, Chief Executive of West London Mental Health NHS Trust, said: “Coproduction as a new and empowering approach for service users and patients’ needs to be at the heart of what we do. This partnership will allow us to continue to learn and share best practice and provide valuable support in the development of our own quality improvement and service development plans.”
Jane McGrath, CEO of West London Collaborative said: “Our work with WLMHT is at the core of everything we do, we believe that the Trust has the potential to lead services nationally. We offer authentic coproduction, innovation, collaboration and reflection to support the trust on that journey – we are really excited by the next phase and delighted to be able to continue the work we started”.
Upcoming WLC events include
- Community Forum 13 June 2017 – Hammersmith
- Coproduction Training 13 June 2017 – Hammersmith
- Community Forum 18 June 2017 – Hounslow
- Coproduction Training 21 July 2017 – Hounslow