Service User and Carer Involvement (SUCI) group
We are a group of service users of health and social care services who have recent experience of health and social care. We also have carers who have been caring in the community for family members and loved ones as core members of the group.
Service User and Carer Involvement Strategy (PDF)
(687.0 KB .PDF)
DOWNLOADOur purpose
Our purpose is to develop the involvement of service users and carers within all the activities of the School of Health Sciences, particularly research and education.
Service user and carer involvement is important to our school so that we reflect the needs and experiences of service users and carers in our educational and research activities. This enables us to benefit from the experiences of those who have received care as patients and carers within health and social care services. Service user and carer involvement will benefit our student practitioners by helping them to understand the patient and carer perspective and this will benefit students’ cognitive and emotional development and, in the future, enhance the quality of patient-centred service delivery.
Our objectives
- Identify opportunities for engagement of the service user and carer perspectives in all aspects of professional education including programme design, recruitment, delivery, management and evaluation.
- Ensure that service user and carer perspectives are reflected within education provision and research activities.
- Contribute to programme validation events.
- Embed the ethos and culture of service user and carer involvement within the School and review the responsibilities of the Group annually.
- Coordinate service user and care involvement across the different programmes within the School.
- Produce a report detailing service user and carer involvement within the School.
- Evaluate the impact of service user and carer involvement within the School.
Past projects
“Making Friends” was written by Ann Emery and the ideas and materials for the play were generated from a project entitled AFRESH, which is a study on fostering empathy between student nurses and older people from the local Age UK group. The project was collaboratively designed and managed by Ann Emery (Age UK), Dr Khim Horton and Dr Anne Arber, Senior Lecturers at the University of Surrey. The play was recorded in the television studios at the University of Surrey by Brian Johnson and sound design and editing was performed by Ian Arber.
In June 2019, a conference day was co-produced by the module teaching team and service users from Slough Community Mental Health Team Recovery College and service users from Surrey and Borders Foundations Trust. This conference had the theme of social and cultural challenges and was part of a core module; Physical and Mental Health Challenges, attended by undergraduate nursing and paramedic students. The feedback received from students was very positive and we will be including much more service user involvement in future teaching.
Mental health simulation day
We ran a co-produced mass immersive simulation event in May 2021 for our final year mental health nursing students. This involved actors playing service users, the police and service user facilitators giving feedback to the students. Another example of successful and innovative service user involvement within the school
Get involved
We are actively seeking service users and carers to contribute to a range of activities, either as part of the group or linked to a specific programme (for instance, adult, child or mental health nursing, midwifery, paramedic science or physicians’ associate).
If you are interested and wish to have further information please email healthsciencesserviceusers@surrey.ac.uk.
Meet the team
Jonny Green
Chair
Dr Wendy Grosvenor
Deputy Chair