WMHWF – Consultation update
Thank you to everyone who has engaged with the consultation process about the National Guidance on Best Practice in Service User and Carer Engagement, and for taking the time and effort to engage and help create this important piece of work.
We had a huge response across the consultation process and have been working hard to incorporate the recommendations made. We recognise how important it is to get this right, but we also realise there has been a long delay since you heard from us. Just to reassure you that there has been lots of work has been going on in the background to reshape and reform the guidance into a practical and useful guidance document.
The guidance is currently with Welsh Government for final approval and we are hoping to be able to release the document in Autumn for distribution.
Background on the consultation process
The Wales Mental Health and Wellbeing Forum were commissioned by Welsh Government to lay out recommendations for best practice in co-production.
The guidance is based on experiences of service user and carer engagement within adult services. However, much of it would be equally applicable to children’s services.
It is written to be as relevant as possible to all, but may require adaptation to organisational circumstances, such as recruitment and HR policies in larger employers like the NHS and Local Authorities.
The document lays out the ambition to increase opportunities for mental health service users and carers in Wales to take part in engagement activities at a range of levels as appropriate to their preference, commitment, experience and capability (with support).
The ultimate aim is to see the co-production of all future mental health services, strategies and policies.
The consultation was open from 25 October 2021 to 31 January 2022. and the Forum was particularly keen to hear from people with lived experience and their friends, families and carers. The Forum aimed to capture the views of both individuals and organisations and networks. Formal responses were also welcomed from individual departments and subgroups.
A series of on online video call engagement events were run via Zoom, which were open to all, alongside a digital survey which was shared via the Forum’s networks and promoted widely on the Forum’s Facebook page and Practice Solutions’ social media channels.