Signing Up to The Charter
On Monday 10th October - World Mental Health Day - the Portsmouth Guildhall hosted an important event launching the Portsmouth Service User Involvement Charter.
Organisations, including Portsmouth City PCT and Portsmouth City Council, local service users and supporters signed up to the principles of the Charter at the launch.
The Charter was developed by service users as one of the projects resulting from the conference 'Involvement Matters' in 2004.
It aims to improve consistency, effectiveness and set standards within service user involvement activities within our local mental health service.
At the launch, the history of service user involvement was presented by Lee Stevens and Alison O'Flaherty, local service users, followed by statements of support from Margaret Geary, Portsmouth City Council's Director of Health, Housing and Social Care, and Janet Quinlan, Non-Executive Director of Portsmouth City Primary Care Trust.
Representatives from other organisations then endorsed and gave their signature to the standards for Portsmouth Service User Involvement. These were: Southern Focus Trust, Richmond Fellowship, Portsmouth Mind, Community Integrated Care, Arts/Ceramics Groups, Portsmouth Interaction, Portsmouth University, and Together.
Anne Beales, Together's National Director of Service User Involvement, said "It's a great Charter for Portsmouth. Unlike many documents from the NHS its accessible and so will be put to good use. People who access the service should enjoy the respect that is due to them when they assist in the design and development of services. The Charter is one tool which will enable this to happen."
The introduction of the Charter will mean that evaluation of the standards will also be put in place, part of a major review of service user involvement in Portsmouth, which is beginning to introduce new structures. Duncan Marshall, Portsmouth's Development Worker, and service user consultants are working on other aspects including the mapping of involvement across the services, which you will hear more about soon.
MORE ABOUT THE CHARTER >>>>
For more information regarding service user involvement in Portsmouth, contact Duncan on 023 92837777 or 07834 750981 or email: serviceusergroups@together-uk.org.