Year 1 Evaluation of The NHS Peer Leader Network

 

 

In a previous post, I've written about my need to fight the system and search for answers. If interested, the post can be found here:

 https://haloabletec.blogspot.com/2021/05/learning-to-be-less-bat-and-more-wayne.html

The post was in response to thinking about stopping fighting the systems in NHS & Social Care and trying to work within, to make changes from the inside. For this reason, I decided to become an NHS Peer Leader.

 

The Peer Leadership Network is part of the NHS personalised care group It is one of the many  enablers to try and make the NHS move away from a medical model where things are done to you, to where you decide what you want and how it’s done.

 

Some of the areas this includes, apart from peer leadership are social prescribing, personal budgets, self management, and shared decision-making.  All the fellow peer leaders I've met come from diverse backgrounds. They include people individuals from a broad spectrum of life. All extremely friendly and highly experienced in various parts of the NHS which they've been involved in.

 

So after a year and a bit as a NHS Peer Leader, I felt it was time to check and consider a review.  To see if working within the system had achieved more than just using my advocacy skills to help people.

 

If it was based on pure involvement, I would say the team that run the NHS Peer Leadership Network, all experts by experience themselves, have achieved amazing results. The team are very approachable and will respond quickly to queries. However, you may not always like the answers you get back.

 

It must be a difficult job for those working in the team. They know and have experience of how it feels from their personal lives and the issues within the system. Having to balance that with keeping within the rules and structural processes can't be easy. I'm on the outside and can get frustrated by this. When peer leaders do bring up issues, there seems to me, from a personal perspective we can't do anything about those or it's not within our remit. A common problem for large organisations.

 

I have, as I said in a recent tweet, had more involvement with different NHS departments on different projects than in my previous experience of a lifetime trying to work with Social Care. The people in the NHS we work with are enthusiastic and welcoming. They listen and, more importantly, implement a lot of the ideas put forward by the Peer Leaders. Not only that, but many are keen to come back and recheck what they are doing a few weeks later. Ideally, I would like to see a year later review to  see if any difference has been made, how the project felt, if it needed tweaking or changing.

 

If I was asked to list all the involvement exercises, I've been involved with, it would take the rest of this blog and another couple of pages. You do not have to participate in everything, and you can pick and choose those that may be appropriate to you and your expertise. For someone with severe disabilities and health needs, this gives me the necessary choice to decide as to what and when I'm involved in, subject to how I feel on particular days.

 

It's not just projects, but Peer Leaders are given a lot of opportunities to be involved in other areas such as trialling apps, discussing wording of websites and even interviewing personnel as to their suitability on projects.

 

My experience in interviewing makes me believe there is much value in this. Peer leaders can often bring unique insights and experience in this area. The one thing I would like to see more is flexibility in the process; the questions asked at the interview are always the corporate format. I understand this from a fairness point of view; however, it may restrict managers from getting the best staff for the job. My recent involvement where I've suggested a few tweaks appropriate and relevant questions, have been met with positivity and inclusivity; however, there are some reservations to having to keep to the corporate line.

 

Another point I'd like to raise is, there is a general feeling for people working within the systems that this is the way the NHS runs and will probably keep running. This highlights why Peer Leaders are so important to help the system have the ‘know how’ to make things happen to shape and move to a structure, which allows innovation and changes that come up from the ground.

 

Having worked in large organisations before, there is a distinct difference from how things are perceived at the top and what happens at the bottom. There is a way around this, fifteen years ago, I was involved in one of the first “getting it right the first time projects” then via the home office. The top point raised in the project was that senior people should get out of their meetings and offices and just walk the floors and corridors talking to people. Move away from the structured norms and just go say hi to people on the floor. Feel and listen to what is really going on. You can’t get this from structured meetings.

 

It's still early days for the Peer Leadership Network, and I'm looking forward to seeing the benefits of lived experience working through the system. To make it happen and be more effective one other thing I'd recommend, let peer leaders not just sit at the front end making changes but include them at all levels of the ladder, like we are doing in the Personalised Care Group. Peer leaders are a huge, virtually free resource for the NHS, which does not utilise all their skills.

 

In summary I would say that the Network is a big plus to making changes happen. As with new things there are always little improvements that can be made. Having got to know the team managing it. I'm pretty sure they'll get there. For me I like it in the light; it's less lonely However, the capes in the cave just in case I ever need it.