Do you use any of our services, or care for someone who does?
FoCUS (Forum of Carers and people who Use Services) is one of the ways you can help shape and improve our services. By sharing your experiences and ideas, you can help us understand what's working well and where we can do better.
We'd particularly like to hear from people who have used, or cared for someone who has used, any of the following services within the last five years:
- Adult Mental Health Services
- Drug and Alcohol Services
- Adult Learning Disability Services
- Older Adult Services
- Adult Eating Disorder Services
Surrey and Borders provide services across the following areas
Choose how you'd like to get involved
It's free to join and you can get involved as much or as little as you like. We understand that you may not always be available, but your experiences and views are important to us.
We offer both online and in-person opportunities. Join our Talk and Learn sessions to hear directly from SABP services and find out about developments across the Trust. You can also take part in our Community FoCUS groups, which provide a more informal space to share experiences, ideas and feedback.
You can speak to us directly or complete our feedback form after joining. If you'd like to get more involved, you can also volunteer to take part in co-production projects.
We serve a diverse community and want people from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences to be involved. Completing the diversity section of the membership form helps us understand whether there are any groups that are underrepresented and where we may need to do more to reach people.
Choose the membership option that works best for you.
Forum Member
Take part in local FoCUS meetings and help us understand people's experiences of our services. Together, we identify common themes and make suggestions about how services can be improved.
You'll hear from guest speakers from across the Trust, learn about service developments, and have opportunities to share your views. Forum members can also join our mailing list to receive updates about co-production opportunities and other ways to get involved.
Co-production Member
As a Co-production Member, you'll join a group of people we contact when opportunities to collaborate and co-design services become available.
These opportunities allow you to work alongside staff and people with lived experience on projects that help shape and improve mental health services.
Please note that Co-production Members receive information about involvement opportunities but do not receive communications about FoCUS forum meetings.
Past achievements include:
- Raising accessibility issues at Farnham Road Hospital
- Providing feedback on the accessible information and smoking policies, welcome packs and appointment letters
- Supporting the development of the Single Point of Access for people in mental health crisis
- Raising issues relating to the discharge process, which led to an audit to check the Trust's compliance with the standards of discharge that have been set
- Working with staff to develop a new Community Mental Health Recovery Service discharge leaflet
- Improving the STEPPS therapy programme and developing parallel training for carers to improve their understanding
FoCUS is an independent group of carers and individuals who use mental health services provided by Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.
FoCUS is supported independently of Surrey and Borders by the Surrey Coalition of Disabled People and LF Solutions.
Meeting documents can be accessed on request by contacting the FoCUS support team at focus
FoCUS is coordinated by Surrey Coalition of Disabled People with additional admin support provided by LF Solutions
To find out more please contact the FoCUS support team:
Email: focus
Lucy Finney
For hardcopies of minutes/paperwork, changes to our database or transport requests please contact:
LF Solutions: Lucy Finney Mobile: 07727 273 242 Email: lucy