Living Well Salford Report

This report details the ongoing work between between Healthwatch Salford and Living Well Salford. It demonstrates how listening to people’s experiences can help bring about positive change and shape the delivery of mental health support in Salford. The work Healthwatch Salford has conducted has led to improvements being made within the Living Well service and beyond.

Throughout this work Healthwatch Salford have taken time to understand individuals’ experiences of the Living Well service and have also learned about their experiences with other mental health services in Salford. This work has given people the opportunity to share their personal experiences throughout their life journeys, which was important as it supported with better understanding of the people who use the service. People emphasised their lack of trust and confidence in mental health services due to their previous experiences and felt it was difficult to rebuild that trust. For some, Living Well had restored their faith in services.

With regards to areas for improvement identified through this work, some people highlighted miscommunications within the Living Well service around referrals. Some people shared that their letters for appointments from the Living Well service were not received, which led to missed appointments. Healthwatch Salford also heard that whilst people felt the support was helpful, the ending felt abrupt when people had completed their time with Living Well.

There were no recommendations in this report however people's experiences have been used to improve the service in the following ways:

• Personal details being updated more regularly across Community teams and administrative staff having a key role in updating information to improve

appointment letter receipt rates.

• More ways of notifying people of appointments, introducing text messages, confirming e-mail addresses and letters being sent in the post.

• Additional staff training implemented to support with goal setting for service users and signposting to services which best suit their needs.

• Improved communication around referrals

• Onward journey tool developed to support people when they leave the Living Well service.

• Improvements made within other mental health services in Salford.

There was a follow up action which is to continue working in partnership collecting people's experiences and passing them to Living Well Salford.