THE PFG GOES NATIONAL

The Doncaster representatives for The PEOPLE Study National Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP)have now been agreed.  Congratulations to our Chairman, Vinny our Vice Chair, Di and Lyndsey from the Involve Group.  We think that this is an excellent team to advise the study at a national level.  It will be a great opportunity to get a real voice for Doncaster to advise on Personalistaion in Mental Health.


The group will met regularly in London and will be an opportunity to share ideas, developments and experience with the four other study sites. We know our representatives will do Doncaster proud and feed back from a local level. We will soon be giving details of how you can get your views included.

The Doncaster participants met last week to agree how they would work locally to advise at the National Panel.  Vinny states that 'being part of the People Study has been an incredible journey that has brought many local people together to share the vision of how Personalisation should work for people with mental health difficulties'.  He commented that the research staff have been an excellent team to work with and really valued the experiences that people with mental health difficulties could bring to the study.  Vinny states that 'I am proud to be a local lead for the study and will make sure that I give 100% to the study'.

THE PEOPLE STUDY:

Personalisation is a central feature of the government's agenda for public sector reform. It involves thinking about public services in an entirely different way - starting with the person rather than the service.
Although the term has a wider meaning linked with the recovery agenda, in practical terms, personalisation is often used synonymously with having individual or personal budgets. This three-year project focuses on understanding the manner in which personalisation (and its practical implementation in four Local Authority areas), impacts on the lives of individuals with severe mental illness, and the organisations that support them.
A case study approach is used to gather rich data, involving the individuals themselves, their carers and practitioners.

The study has three key objectives:

• To gain a clear understanding of how personalisation is shaping the lives of people with severe mental illness
• To understand how organisations and care staff are adapting to work with people affected by severe mental illness, within personalised models of health and social care
• To understand the role of carers in assisting people with severe mental illness to negotiate the challenges and opportunities offered by personalisation.

We will influence national policy by producing online resources, guidance and strategies for stakeholders and key policy-decision makers.