HEALTHWATCH Surrey is calling on residents who care about the NHS to take up crucial patient leadership roles to support improvement of the quality and safety of health and social care in the county.

The NHS watchdog is recruiting 12 volunteer patient leaders for a new programme to involve the public in decisions. It is teaming up with Kent, Surrey, Sussex Academic Health Science Network (KSS AHSN) and the National Centre for Patient Leadership,

Healthwatch Surrey project manager Matthew Parris said: “Our patient leaders will help the NHS to see the patient perspective in a new way to help create services that work for local people.

“Examples like the new Mindsight Children and Adolescent Mental Health service (CAMHS), which involved young people from the start of its design, show how local NHS leaders are beginning to see the benefits of working in partnership with patients...how designing and delivering services with – and not ‘doing things to’ – patients is resulting in improved services for everyone.”

KSS AHSN’s senior manager Pauline Smith said: “The focus of this project is to bring an external perspective to the work we do, supporting organisations across Kent, Surrey and Sussex to improve care.

“I am confident these leaders will bring us a different perspective, ask questions and offer views that will steer our work and improve outcomes for patients and service improvement.”

Patient leaders will work on areas such as: reducing medication errors; making sure patients are safely discharged home or to their next care provider; how sepsis and acute kidney iInjury can be detected early and treated effectively.

They will applying their perspective as a patient or carer to key discussions about how to improve services, to sound out ideas and plans.

Healthwatch Surrey says the pioneering programme could set a new standard and expectation about how the expertise of local people can applied across the NHS, and beyond, to accelerate progress towards treating people as partners.

The time commitment will vary but will be a mixture of days and mornings/ afternoons over nine weekdays in the next 12 months, commencing on March 10, with other dates to be agreed.

For more information and an application pack, call 0303 303 0023 (local rate) or go to www.healthwatch surrey.co.uk