Expert by Experience Programme
Create an ongoing route for lived experience to inform service review, feedback and improvement activity.
LENs’ Expert by Experience Programme brings Experts by Experience into regular service visits, feedback processes and co-productive work. A monthly insight report brings together what people have said, the themes that are emerging and any recommendations that need to be considered.
The organisational need
Feedback often sits in different places: conversations, surveys, complaints, meetings and notes held by individual teams. When it is spread out like this, recurring issues can be harder to spot.
An Expert by Experience programme gives lived experience a regular place in review and feedback activity. People can be heard while work is still developing, and the themes from those conversations can be brought into the meetings where decisions are made.
The programme adds a lived experience perspective to the information your organisation already uses. It does not replace clinical, quality, governance or regulatory responsibilities.
What the service includes
The precise scope should reflect the service setting, the people whose experiences need to be understood and the decisions the insight will inform. LENs’ current programme offer includes:
Experts by Experience contribute a perspective grounded in how care and support are experienced. The brief should define the focus of each visit or review, the questions being explored and how observations or feedback will be recorded.
Depending on the work, Experts by Experience can gather patient feedback, carer feedback, or both. Participation, consent, confidentiality and accessible ways to contribute will be covered in the delivery plan.
The programme can feed lived experience insight into the groups that review services and consider improvements. The scope should name who will receive the insight and how they will respond.
Monthly reports bring feedback, recurring themes and recommendations into one place. They give the organisation a regular opportunity to decide what needs a closer look and what it wants to do next.
Clear boundaries
The Expert by Experience Programme is not a regulatory inspection, clinical assessment, formal complaint investigation or emergency safeguarding response. Your organisation remains responsible for its statutory, clinical, quality, employment and governance duties.
Who participates
Experts by Experience draw on personal experience of using health or social care services, or of caring for and supporting someone who uses services. They can notice how a service, process or environment feels in practice and question assumptions that may otherwise go untested.
LENs uses a specialist, proprietary selection process that has been refined over time. We keep the method confidential. It helps us identify Experts by Experience whose perspective is relevant to the programme, while leaving enough flexibility to respond to the setting and the questions being asked.
Before delivery, contributors and service teams will be briefed on the work. Access needs, confidentiality, support and practical arrangements will be agreed as part of the programme scope.
Delivery process
Agree the service area, the questions to be explored, the people whose experiences need to be heard and how the resulting insight will be used.
Agree the activities, frequency, responsibilities, reporting arrangements and practical requirements. This stage also establishes boundaries, escalation routes and support for participating Experts by Experience.
Brief everyone on the setting, purpose, methods and limits of each person’s role. Staff should know why Experts by Experience are involved and what will happen to the information gathered.
Deliver the agreed service visits, reviews, feedback activity or co-productive sessions using accessible and proportionate methods suited to the setting and people taking part.
Bring the work together in a monthly report that separates what was heard or observed, the themes that are emerging and the recommendations being put forward.
Discuss the report with the people responsible for the service. They can decide what needs further enquiry and whether the programme should focus on anything different next month.
Deliverables
The current LENs service record supports the following core outputs:
The proposal or statement of work should specify the number and frequency of activities, report format, intended recipients, meeting attendance, data-handling arrangements and any follow-up support.
Safeguards and participation
This work may involve personal or sensitive information. Before activity begins, LENs will agree the practical arrangements with your organisation, including confidentiality, access, support, boundaries and routes for raising a concern. The detail can be adapted to the setting and the people taking part.
Common questions
If your question is more specific, tell us about the work and we can discuss it directly.
Ask a questionAn Expert by Experience is someone who brings knowledge developed through direct personal experience of health or social care, or through caring for and supporting someone who uses services. Their contribution complements professional and organisational knowledge by showing how services are experienced in practice.
The current LENs offer includes service reviews and assessments, patient and/or carer feedback capture, regular service visits, co-productive channels and monthly insight reporting. The commissioned scope will identify the activities that are relevant to your organisation.
The frequency of visits, reviews or other activities is agreed during scoping. LENs’ current programme description includes monthly insight reports, but the activity schedule and reporting cycle must be confirmed in the proposal.
The current service description refers to lived experience insights, themes and recommendations. Before delivery, we agree the report format, level of detail, intended readers and treatment of confidential information.
No. The programme provides a lived experience perspective within the agreed service-improvement scope. It does not replace regulatory inspection, clinical governance, statutory duties or the organisation’s own formal assurance processes.
We use our proprietary process to identify Experts by Experience whose perspective is relevant to the programme. We do not publish the detailed method. Contributors are briefed and supported in line with the agreed scope and the setting in which they will be working.
Related services
Next step
Tell us which service or setting you want to understand, how lived experience is currently involved and what you would like a regular programme to help your organisation learn.