The Personalised Care Group at NHS England and NHS Improvement has developed an exciting and innovative online personal development programme with the aim of developing hundreds of new peer leaders by 2024.
A Peer Leader is ‘a person with lived experience who is committed to working collaboratively with the system to shape and influence how health and care is delivered.’ The approach is fundmental to the work of the Coalition for Personalised Care, ensuring that co-production is embedded across the NHS. It makes sense that, to ensure that our NHS meets everyone’s needs, the people who use services – especially those living with long term conditions, disabled people and family carers – have the opportunity to shape them.
For the last few years, the Personalised Care Group at NHS England and NHS Improvement has been running a hugely successful and inclusive programme to develop Peer Leaders who are active at a national, regional and local level. They come from diverse backgrounds with different lived experience but there’s simply not enough of them!
The programme is free and runs continuously so you can join at any time. It’s delivered online in partnership with an accessible learning platform called Future Learn. The programme is aimed at people with long-term health conditions and disabilities who could benefit from personalised care, but it also suitable for people working in the health, care and voluntary sectors. The programme has three main aims:
- To tell people what personalised care is and how people in England can benefit
- To develop new Peer Leaders who can support the development of personalised care
- To develop Peer Leader Facilitators to provide leadership and support to Peer Leaders
If you’d like to get involved full details are available in the course booklet and contact details to find out more are are available here.
