Lancaster University mental health resource wins 2023 North West Coast Research and Innovation Award

The award for Outstanding Contribution to Patient and Public Involvement is for The Library of Lived Experience (LLE) for mental health in the north west, created by a team led from the Spectrum Centre in the Faculty of Health and Medicine.

The team included researchers with lived experience and people with lived experience of mental health issues.

Prof Fiona Lobban said: “It’s brilliant to see the hard work celebrated of everyone involved in the living library project. There are too many to mention individually but well done all of you! This has been such a fun project to work on because of the range of people and views involved. We are working on developing the next stage of the project, and keen to hear from others who think a living library might help facilitate the sharing of lived expertise in this organisation.”

An LLE employs people as living books, trained and supported to share their experiences in one-to-one conversations. Readers are people seeking to learn about mental health to help themselves, a loved one, or they might be staff. Readers choose a book based on a short author summary and have a conversation with the book.

Prof Lobban added: “We’re currently studying the likely impacts of a living library and how it might work as a valuable resource for mental health in the north. We’re developing a framework with input from clinicians in the NHS and lived experience experts to train and support the ‘books’, compile synopses with them and ensure they maintain control of their story.

“As a living book, their story is likely to change over time and context, so we need to look at how that story is recreated and the boundaries for the ‘readers’ to ask questions.”

Patient and Public Involvement was embedded throughout the project including an Experience Based Codesign Group who codesigned the outputs, a Patient and Public Involvement Group who codesigned the study design, and an Expert Advisory group comprising people with personal and professional mental health experiences.

In the Experience-Based Co-Design workstream, 31 people with lived and learned experiences attended 10 workshops to co-design an implementation guide of an LLE. 21 had experience of using mental health services and 13 were relatives and carers.

Prof Lobban said: “We were guided by people with lived experiences. Our co-designed, theory-informed guide was made possible by extensive PPI involvement. PPI members brought expertise and a range of experiences related to LLEs, encouraging us to think about the purpose of the LLE and how to involve people in future implementation evaluations.”

Innovation Agency Chief Executive Dr Phil Jennings said: “These awards are an opportunity to pay tribute to those who work to reduce health inequalities and improve patient care.”

The awards were hosted by the Innovation Agency, NIHR Clinical Research Network: North West Coast and The Applied Research Collaboration North West Coast.