NELFT NHS Foundation Trust
Involvement & Participation Lead - 12 Month Secondment
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12 MONTH SECONDMENT OPPORTUNITY - BEGINNING SEPT 2026
About The Role
Do you love meeting people, being out in the community? Are you passionate about improving patient and carer experiences through meaningful engagement, co-production, and lived experience leadership?
We are seeking a dynamic and motivated Involvement & Participation Lead to play a pivotal role in shaping and delivering our Patient and Carer Experience Strategy. This is an exciting opportunity to work collaboratively with service users, carers, clinical teams, community organisations, and senior leaders to ensure that lived experience is at the heart of service design, delivery, and improvement.
The successful candidate will champion co-production across the directorate, ensuring the voices of patients, carers, families, and communities directly influence decision-making, service development, and quality improvement initiatives.
Key Responsibilities
Patient & Carer Experience
- Support the implementation of the Patient and Carer Experience Strategy across the locality.
- Coordinate patient and carer engagement activities, ensuring consistency and high-quality feedback that informs clinical and operational decision-making.
- Work closely with Head of Involvement to support key projects within the Involvement Team
- Support operational and clinical teams to embed the carer voices into service development and improvement.
- Travel across the locality to meet with teams, services, patients, and carers to ensure feedback is heard and acted upon.
Engagement & Stakeholder Relationships
- Develop and maintain strong relationships with clinical and non-clinical staff, community groups, voluntary organisations, and key stakeholders.
- Build effective networks with service users, carers, families, Healthwatch, and local partners to strengthen involvement and co-production.
- Represent the directorate internally and externally, sharing good practice and promoting lived experience leadership.
- Create and maintain effective communication channels that enable meaningful two-way dialogue with communities and stakeholders.
- Prepare reports and provide updates on involvement and engagement activities to senior leadership teams and Board-level forums.
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Co-Production Leadership
- Champion and promote co-production across all levels of the directorate.
- Support the Coproduction Leads with training and development of coproduction within specific groups including Carers.
- Embed co-production principles into service delivery, quality improvement, policy development, and strategic planning.
- Provide leadership and specialist expertise in lived experience and co-production methodologies.
- Support teams in identifying and developing opportunities for co-production initiatives.
- Contribute to internal and external meetings, forums, and working groups focused on lived experience and service improvement.
Community Engagement & Inclusion
- Support local communities to ensure diverse voices are heard and represented.
- Identify and address barriers to involvement and engagement, promoting accessible participation opportunities.
- Work collaboratively with partners to identify and tackle health inequalities within local communities.
- Organise and facilitate meetings, workshops, forums, consultations, and engagement events, both face-to-face and online.
Leadership & Strategic Contribution
- Work as part of the Directorate Senior Leadership Team, maintaining close links with the central Involvement Team to ensure a joined-up approach.
- Attend committee meetings and provide updates on local engagement activities and outcomes.
- Lead on involvement and lived experience projects, ensuring objectives, milestones, and outcomes are delivered effectively.
About You
We are looking for an individual who is passionate about improving services through partnership working and lived experience leadership.
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Essential Criteria
- Personal lived experience of using services within NELFT or other NHS settings, or experience of caring for someone who has used services within the directorate.
- Live within the local area
- Strong understanding of involvement, engagement, and co-production principles.
- Experience of working collaboratively with service users, carers, stakeholders, and multidisciplinary teams.
- Excellent communication, influencing, negotiation, and relationship-building skills.
- Ability to analyse feedback and data, identify trends, and support service improvements.
- Experience of planning, coordinating, and facilitating meetings, workshops, events, and engagement activities.
- Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple projects and priorities.
- Commitment to inclusion, equality, and reducing health inequalities.
Desirable Criteria
- Experience in healthcare, community engagement, patient experience, or service improvement roles.
- Knowledge of quality improvement methodologies.
- Understanding of NHS patient and public involvement frameworks.
- Experience of working with voluntary sector organisations, Healthwatch, or community groups.
What We Offer
- The opportunity to make a genuine impact on patient and carer experiences.
- A collaborative and supportive working environment.
- Opportunities for professional development and leadership growth.
- The chance to influence service delivery and strategic decision-making across the directorate.
Join Us
If you believe that the voices of patients, carers, and communities should be central to healthcare improvement and you are passionate about driving meaningful change through lived experience leadership and co-production, we would love to hear from you.
Apply today and help shape services that truly reflect the needs of the people who use them.
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