Individual feedback from Day 1

•    It has given me hope
•    I did not realise the amount of groups and services out there
•    I wish our involvement could have started earlier in the process
•    I feel quite excited
•    I have a clearer understanding of what it is all about and hope that Service Users and Carers can be treated as people
•    I am reassured at the amount of services we have, and I am going to get involved
•    I like the idea of service users and carers being in at the start and the whole process and to take things where they should be
•    We are going to make change and be heard
•    This will give us power to the elbow
•    This will allow us to help pull things together, I recognise the positives and recognise how the NHS has drifted

Day 2 feedback on Mental health recovery star and Verona service satisfaction scale
Mental health recovery star:
•    Some degree of complexity
•    Traffic lighting would help better
•    Visual imaging is good and clear
•    Opportunity for real holistic working
•    Partnership working opportunities
•    There is a need for blind/ visually impaired version
•    Lacking in carers side and relationships
•    It needs to be done with someone who knows you and your background
•    It needs input from other family members
•    It needs to highlight when a carer is struggling

Verona service satisfaction scale:
•    It should be a consistent reporting scale, the one used is confusing
•    It is very wordy
•    It is too long
•    It is not User or Carer friendly
•    I like the depth
•    It would be good as an electronic tool, which is anonymous
•    Free text should be at the start and not at the end
•    It would be exhausting to complete
•    There is some degree of duplication of questions
•    We need to develop a regional satisfaction scale and would like to protect a days workshop to do it
•    It involves carers
•    There should be explanations with the questions
•    Language is an issue
•    There should be feedback after completion

Individual feedback from Day 3

•    Good networking
•    Nice to meet like-minded people
•    It has given me more interest in services
•    Good to share my experiences with others
•    A steep learning curve
•    It will be good to keep in touch
•    We have stuff we can take forward
•    It will enable me to become more active in the local Implementation
•    I have better knowledge of mental health services
•    It will be great to see good theory in practice
•    It has been a damn good investment; I have a lot more knowledge
•    I have learnt loads and have had great support from everyone
•    I am delighted that there are delegates hare to represent the commissioners and build links
•    A good beginning, we need to keep working together

Next steps and comments from Users and Carers final group session
•    Reviews need to be conducted by independent user and carer groups- to put into specifications
•    There need to be statements in the specifications around how individuals can re-engage with services
•    There needs to be a statement in the specifications that service users and carers have authority to be involved in service reviews
•    Creative methods need to be used around the review process, not just questionnaires
•    There needs to be feedback to Users and Carers after the review process
•    There needs to be information sharing and planning of the involvement of users and carers well in advance of reviews
•    If commissioners are serious about user and carer involvement they need to improve engagement with users and carers
•    There needs to be better education available for users and carers (better information, respite, ability to meet other carers)
•    There needs to be resourcing for user and carer groups to do the things commissioners require
•    Users and carers should be able to make recommendations for improvement as part of the review process- explicit in specifications
•    Staff should have mandatory training in understanding user and carer issues
•    There should be development and support for user and carer charters
•    There should be a sharing of the peer review questions
•    There should be a central good practice resource
•    There should be benchmark documents available for user and carer groups
•    There should be better guidance on payments/ reward/ recognition
•    We would like a follow up day