You in mind - 'Your Experience Matters’ - Sensemaker re-audit 2015

In 2012, the Public Health Agency and the Health and Social Care Board surveyed people across Northern Ireland to assess their experience of Mental Health services.  The ‘Your Experience Matters’ survey was based upon nine questions developed by service users and carers from each Trust area.  In addition, through providing additional ‘free text’, individual respondents could tell their story and describe their personal experience of using mental health services.

The issues and concerns highlighted in the 2012 survey, such as the need for ‘good communication’, ‘shared care’, and ‘timely information’ were prioritised for improvement.  Each Trust subsequently engaged in service improvement activities to help address these issues/concerns.  A key part of this process has been the ‘Implementing Recovery through Organisational Change’ programme (ImROC: www.imroc.org/). This is based upon staff and service users working together to ensure mental health services become more recovery-focused.

To assess progress from 2012, a ‘2nd Edition’ of the regional survey was undertaken between Oct-Dec 2015, representing the updated views of service users and carers.  The You In Mind – Your Experience Matters report is available below.  Overall, it is pleasing to report that the findings of the 2015 survey demonstrate a general improvement from 2012 across all areas.