Catching up this morning with events last week. We had a tremendous result last Thursday with the Movin’ On Up Seminar...
Expert Patient Trainer Dave Smith explains: "It was an exciting event with a great representation of service users, carers, health professionals and policy makers. Often service users are consulted for their ideas and opinions but the Seminar saw an actual conversation between us, senior policy makers in Government and the NHS. It was empowering for everyone – and because of frankness of the discussion and the equality given to the various perspectives, the event generated some truly innovative ideas."
And our valued colleague David Crepaz-Keay, Head of Empowerment and Social Inclusion at the Mental Health Foundation, said: "Twenty years ago the idea that you could come to a conference that was led by the people who are most important in the process would not have been believed. It’s been a truly enjoyable and informative day."
Key points that emerged from the day included the following:
• A process is required where the outcomes of the Mental Health (Wales) Measure are recorded and disseminated so that service users and carers know that it is working, that it is making a difference and that it is not just a piece of paper but a real step forward.
• There is a major task to embed the culture needed for the implementation of the new Measure and Strategy in the day-to-day practice of Care Coordinators and other front-line staff, as well as their managers.
• Service users and carers need to be formally involved in the wider commissioning of services and not just ‘consulted’. There also needs to be a specific intention to acknowledge and enhance the role of carers through the Strategy and the Measure and through the information strategies required by the Carers Measure.
Multitasking as usual David CK popped up again transformed into a yeti to put the fear into his Chief Exec Andrew McCulloch, Bipolar UK's Sue Wigmore, and me...
Meanwhile on Friday the campaign reached Neath Port Talbot with an event in Neath’s busy town centre...
