Engagement and Partnerships review 2022

Collaborations with members helped us to strive for innovation and service development across health and social care. 

Over the course of 2022, the ALLIANCE were grateful for the contributions of many people with lived experience and partnerships.

Mental Health Standards

As members of the Scottish Government Mental Health and Well-being Standards Working Group, the ALLIANCE and VOX (Voices of Experience) Scotland were invited by the Group and Minister Kevin Stewart to take a lead role in engaging with lived experience in the development of future Mental Health Standards.

We undertook a series of engagement approaches to ensure that the perspectives of people with lived experience and their carers are centred within the Standards’ development, and have now launched our report ‘Shaping New Mental Health Standards: A lived experience perspective’. The recommendations within this report will feed into the public consultation on the Standards, launched in December.

Irene Oldfather wrote an article published in The Scotsman discussing the publication and Scotland’s proposed Mental Health Standards, as well as our short video summarising the ALLIANCE’s engagement programme and our key findings and recommendations.

Transvaginal Mesh

We were grateful to continue to engage with women with experience of transvaginal mesh in 2022. Following our previous work in this area in 2021, Parliament passed the Transvaginal Reimbursement Bill at the end of January to support women who had paid privately for mesh removal, with the Reimbursement Scheme launched in June. The ALLIANCE was pleased to have supported the development of the Scheme by working with women affected across 2021/2022 to share their experiences and priorities with the Scottish Government and with the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee.

At the request of the Scottish Government, we supported the organisation of a meeting between the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Humza Yousaf MSP, and women with experience of mesh. The session was an opportunity for women put questions directly to the Cab Sec. The discussion covered important concerns for many women including experience of the Glasgow mesh centre, aftercare pathways and practicalities of the procurement scheme to non-NHS mesh removal surgeons.

Medicines and pharmacy

The ALLIANCE advises across multiple engagement groups to improve medicine and pharmacy services in Scotland, including the Pharmacotherapy Strategic Implementation Group (PSIG) meetings, to advise on development of the Scottish Pharmacotherapy service. This group seeks to improve prescribing processes, monitor high risk medicines and deliver Medicines Reviews to polypharmacy patients. Director Irene Oldfather also Chairs the Polypharmacy Patient Group and represents the views and priorities of patients on the Polypharmacy Short Life Working Group, which is looking to develop a series of patient user guides for polypharmacy.

Irene is also on the Project Board for the iSIMPATHY Project, and in this role encourages individuals and organisations to engage with the core principles of the iSIMPATHY project: ensuring decisions are made with people, not for people; promoting the value of Medicines Review for improving patient outcomes and shared decision-making in their own care; as well as exploring the challenges people face in taking medicines. This project has so far enabled over 5000 Medicine Reviews for patients.

National Collaborative on Drugs and Alcohol

The ALLIANCE is working with Professor Alan Miller to develop the new National Collaborative project, which seeks to integrate human rights into drug and alcohol policy in Scotland, leading to better outcomes for people affected by substance use.

The First Minister has appointed Alan Miller to lead the National Collaborative process, which will involve people with experience of problem substance use as well as people responsible for delivering support services, to make recommendations on future drug and alcohol policy in Scotland. The ALLIANCE is providing facilitation support and guidance to the lived and living experience group, which will lead this change over the course of the project.

The ‘Roadmap for the National Collaborative’ details how a human rights-based approach will be put in to practice, with people at the heart of the Scottish Government’s National Mission to reduce drug related deaths and improve lives impacted by drugs.

End of document.

End of page.