Kirklees people with learning disabilities ‘tell the boss’
Kirklees people with learning disabilities and their carers have taken part in a special event hosted by South West Yorkshire Mental Health Trust. The event, held at the Rams Stadium in Dewsbury was called "Tell the Boss" and offered an extra opportunity for people who use Trust services and their carers to tell the NHS what they thought of services and what is important to them.
The event was a huge success, bringing together almost 100 people including NHS and social care staff and over 40 people with learning disabilities and their family carers. People with varying levels of disability and their carers from all across Kirklees participated.
Those who attended were given the opportunity to talk about services and feed back directly to "the boss," Tim Breedon, the Trust’s Assistant Director of Learning Disability Services. Information and feedback obtained on the day is now being used to inform future plans to improve the service.
People at the event were also able to sign up as members of the Trust. South West Yorkshire Mental Health Trust is applying to become a Foundation Trust which means local people can join as members and have a say in their local NHS. Over 9600 local people have already signed up as members, including people with learning disabilities and their carers.
Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Tony Ovenell, who helped organise the day, said, ‘I am really grateful to everyone for the hard work they put into organising the event. It was a great day. The activities and competitions seemed to go down really well and we managed to get some very useful feedback in return.’
The ‘boss,’ Assistant Director of Learning Disability services Tim Breedon, said ‘I really enjoyed hearing the views of people who use services and their carers, first hand. They’ve provided some very valuable feedback to us that we can act on. We plan to take all that we have learned from this event to set up similar days in other Trust areas.’
Local people interested in joining the Trust as a member can visit www.southwestyorkshire.nhs.uk or call 01924 327567 for more information.