Job Description

Mental Health Volunteer Healthwatch Lewisham

About the role

Mental Health Patient Experience

Volunteer

For our mental health inpatient project, we pay monthly visits to the Ladywell unit in University Hospital Lewisham and Speedwell Mental Health Centre at Deptford. We would also be looking at mental health services in community spaces as part of our research projects this year.

We serve as an independent, trusted party with whom service users feel comfortable sharing their experiences. Ward managers have provided Healthwatch staff with ward orientations and outlined health and safety measures .Ward staff have been welcoming, ready to help us with questions and updated us on any developments happening on the ward.

Patients have received our visits well and are happy to talk to us about their experiences with the service. In their feedback, patients highlight areas of good practice alongside recommendations for further improvements of the service.

Volunteers will be trained and supported by officers to attend visits and input any feedback collected. Patient experience comments are fed into our database where themes and subthemes are applied. Healthwatch Lewisham will provide ?updates, report on instant concerns or issues and produce quarterly reports outlining key themes and trends. Collecting patient experience is invaluable in supporting patient engagement in the development of mental health service provision. You would be responsible for - Leading or assisting with the individual conversations or patient forums - collecting the experiences of mental health inpatients and/or from people accessing community mental health services. - inputting the experiences into our feedback.

The time commitment for this role is 4-12 hours per month

.

Full training will be provided

About You

For this role we are looking for "experts by experience" meaning we would like those who have had experience of ill mental health, a carer or relative of someone with ill mental health or a student of mental healthcare.

We are looking for people who are - Compassionate - Empathetic - want to improve mental health services - looking for a social role

Can commit to the project for 10 months.

About YVHSC Your Voice in Health and Social Care (YVHSC) is an independent organisation that gives people a voice to improve and shape services and help them get the best out of health and social care provision

Job Type: Volunteer

Schedule:

Day shift No weekends
Experience:

of using mental health services: 1 year (preferred)
Work Location: In person