Involvement for influence: developing the 4Pi Involvement Standards

Abstract

The 4Pi National Involvement Standards for England were developed by the National Involvement Partnership (NIP) project from 2012 until 2015. NIP was a partnership of organisations hosted by the independent user-led organisation for England, the National Survivor User Network (NSUN). NSUN is a national network bringing together individuals and groups with direct experience of mental distress to communicate, feel supported and empowered, and to have direct influence over their services and lives. One of the main aims of the NIP project was to establish the reality of involving service users and carers in the planning, delivery and evaluation of health and social care services. Service user and carer involvement has been on the policy agenda for health and social care services in Britain for several decades. The UK 1990 NHS and Community Care Act introduced a focus on the ‘consumer’ and assumed that greater choice would mean that involvement would improve the relevance and quality of services for the consumer (or service user). More recently, the UK cross-government mental health outcomes strategy ‘No Health without Mental Health’(2011) placed an emphasis on wellbeing and on outcomes for individuals, based on principles of ‘freedom, fairness and responsibility’. Over the years, many mental health organisations in Britain have addressed service user involvement in different ways, developed guidance and policies for better involving service users and carers, with the aim of improving individual care and services. However, much of the learning from progressive policy implementation programmes has been lost along the way. A particularly good example of this loss is the Making a Real Difference (MARD) programme developed under the UK New Labour government during the early 2000s.