About LENs
Lived Experience Network, known as LENs, is a national lived experience organisation working with health and social care services and the organisations around them.
We help create clear, useful roles for Experts by Experience so that knowledge gained through being a patient, accessing services or caring for someone can inform decisions, services and improvement work.
Our team
Managing Director
Zachary leads LENs and its work with organisations, with a focus on building clear structures for co-production and Expert by Experience involvement. He oversees the development of services, organisational relationships and the practical delivery needed to turn lived experience insight into usable work.
Chairman
Peter brings more than 20 years of leadership and advocacy experience. His work has included developing and supporting peer-led initiatives in London and across the UK. At LENs, he contributes strategic oversight and helps keep the organisation's purpose and approach in view as its work develops.
Non-Executive Director
Geoff brings extensive experience in mental health practice, quality improvement and the development of Safewards. He contributes independent challenge and sector knowledge to LENs' leadership, with a focus on how lived experience involvement can connect with practical service improvement.
Our origin
Lived experience involvement is not new. Patients, people who access services and carers have contributed to health and social care for a long time. What has often been missing is a clear structure around that contribution.
People may be invited into a room without a well-defined role, asked to speak only from their own story, or brought into a project after the main decisions have already been made. Organisations may want to involve lived experience well but lack the time, infrastructure or specialist support to organise it properly.
LENs was founded in 2021 to help change that. Our purpose is to give lived experience a clearer place in organisational work: a defined question, an appropriate role, practical support and an agreed route for what is learned to reach the people who can act on it.
Our purpose
LENs exists to help organisations move from good intentions about lived experience to work that has a clear purpose and can be followed through.
Our approach
We begin with what the organisation needs to understand, decide or improve. Only then do we recommend a service, activity or combination of services. A panel, an advisory board and a research project are not interchangeable.
The role, questions, responsibilities, boundaries and outputs should be clear. This helps Experts by Experience understand what they are being asked to contribute and helps the organisation use that contribution appropriately.
Involvement should connect with a real part of the organisation's work. We agree how feedback, themes, findings or recommendations will be recorded and shared, and where appropriate how the organisation will return to what it has heard.
The LENS values
We listen carefully to different experiences and viewpoints. Our role is to understand what people are saying, including where experiences differ, rather than looking only for the comments that fit an existing view.
Lived experience work often involves personal, difficult or complex subjects. We approach people with care and recognise the knowledge that can come from direct experience without assuming that one person speaks for everyone.
We bring feedback, themes and findings back clearly and professionally. Organisations need to understand what was heard, what it may mean and what questions may need further attention.
We support Experts by Experience to contribute within an agreed role and help organisations create the conditions for that contribution to be useful. Support also means being clear about boundaries and routes for raising a concern.
Start a conversation
If you are considering lived experience involvement but are not yet sure what it should look like, tell us what you are working on. We will help you define the questions and consider the right next step.