Peer support & lived experience workforce at SWLSTG
At SWLST we have a vibrant team of peer support workers and lived-experience practitioners who work in the design and implementation of our peer support services, training and other activities involving lived experience of accessing mental health services or mental health distress.
Our Trust has a long history of employing lived-experience practitioners and delivering peer-led work. We valued and embraced the first-hand experiences of people with mental health challenges and their carers, as well as their experiences of accessing mental health services.

We count on over 40 peer support workers and lived-experience practitioners across all our service lines, using their stories to inspire hope, empower others and role model recovery amongst our colleagues, patients and friends, families and carers. Our lived-experience workforce is made of people from all walks of life and their experiences and stories are as diverse, as that of the people we care for.
Our peer support workers and lived experience practitioners work closely with the Trust clinical teams and operational managers, the local crisis cafes, the Recovery College, our voluntary sector partners, and our wider networks to ensure we deliver the best quality of care for our patients and their carers.
The lived experience workforce at SWLSTG continues to benefit from engaging in peer-to-peer supervision, creating personal wellness action plans, accessing peer support and other statutory training, and participating in a monthly peer support and development group with other colleagues doing lived experience work.

We know that people who are interested in peer support and lived experience work have different reasons to do so. We take these reasons into account and are committed to ensuring that our peer support and lived experience workforce maintain their wellbeing and enhance their professional experience through the work they undertake.
Whether you want to give back to the community, help shape the services that support you or the person you care for, share your recovery story with others, inspire people finding it difficult, or simply be a listening ear, we might have a role for you.
We have roles that might suit people who are approaching their professional life alongside their recovery journey. We work closely with our Involvement Team and our volunteers, ensuring we create professional development pathways and extend opportunities for career development that are tailored to every practitioner’s needs.

People interested in accessing peer support services or joining our lived experience workforce can get in touch with our Peer Support and Lived Experience workforce lead, by emailing involvement@swlstg.nhs.uk or calling 020 3513 5775.

South London Listens is a unique collaboration of the two south London Integrated Care Systems (ICSs), three south London mental health trusts, nine local authorities and over 150 community organisations working to prevent a mental health crisis as a result of Covid-19 and supporting community recovery.
With a strategic partner Citizens UK, the programme listened to over 6,000 people to develop four key priorities and a range of co-created solutions. 22 pledges were committed by the programme partners and a 2-year action plan was launched in November 2021. This plan is overseen by a Taskforce that meets monthly chaired by our Trust Ann Beasley CBE (Chair, South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust) Sir Norman Lamb (Chair, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust) and Venerable Dr Rosemarie Mallett (Bishop of Croydon), alongside community leaders and representatives from the NHS and local authority partners.
In January 2023, the South London Listens year one impact report was published setting out the partnership's significant progress that has been made in delivering on pledges made to our communities, as outlined at our Accountability Assembly on 10 October, World Mental Health Day 2022
Visit the South London Listens website for more news and developments.
South London Listens Action Plan
Our action plan has been co-produced with support from statutory, voluntary and community organisations.
Over the next two years between November 2021 - November 2023 we will deliver these actions as a partnership, helping to create a new blueprint for working together to build community resilience and improve mental health across south London.
To everyone involved in South London Listens so far, thank you.
What you have told us has shaped our four priorities.
Our four priorities
· Priority one: Loneliness, social isolation and digital exclusion
· Priority two: work and wages
· Priority three: Children, young people and parental mental health
· Priority four: Access to mental health services for migrants, refugees and diaspora communities
Be Well Champions Programme
The Champions programme will develop the capability and capacity of community and voluntary organisations to support the wellbeing of local people and to strengthen collaborations between health services and voluntary organisations. The programme is made up of three strands:
Be Well Champions
Individuals embedded in an organisation who will receive special training to help those suffering from mental ill-health. They will receive training and supervisions - and report back on key themes and trends from their communities. Our first training was launched in January and we have now trained 40 people.
Be Well Hubs
Working with leaders in organisations to develops safe spaces for local people to turn to when they feel their mental health is low or simply to feel more connected with their local community.
You can watch a video about the Hubs here or access a leaflet here.
Hubs in South West London
Kingston
- Kingston Methodists
- New Malden Methodists
- Kingston Vale
- Christ Church Surbiton Hill
- St Andrews and St Marks Surbiton
- Islamic Resource Centre
- Kingston Carers Network
Merton
- Mitcham Parish
- Wimbledon College
- YMCA
- Merton Libraries (7 across the borough)
Wandsworth
- St Michael's Wandsworth Common
- St Mary's Battersea
- Free2B
- Balham Libraries
We are working to identify and train hubs in our other boroughs this year.
February 2021
Remote consultations in mental health webinar - learning from evaluation in South London
COVID-19 turbo charged use of video consultations in clinical practice. This webinar is co-hosted with the Health Innovation Network (HIN), drawing on its research across South London into remote consultations and their impact. It takes place on Tuesday 9 March, from 12 to 1pm. More information:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/remote-consultations-in-mental-health-learning-from-evaluation-tickets-139835452603
The event will cover areas including:
- Are remote consultation effective for staff and service users?
- What the evidence tells us from the HIN research
- The human factors influencing uptake and delivery
- How do we tackle digital exclusion?
It will feature clinicians, digital specialists, Lived Experience Practitioners, academic experts and others, aiming to help inform online clinical practice. HIN research details:
https://healthinnovationnetwork.com/projects/remote-consultations-in-mental-health
January 2021
Provider Collaboratives Quality Start-Up Summit
Clinicians from Adult Eating Disorders, CAMHS and Forensic services - including the independent sector - came together to start developing quality monitoring, measuring and reporting standards and a framework for the new responsibilities and accountabilities for care quality SLP has taken on from NHSE Specialist Commissioning through Provider Collaboratives.
December 2020
Provider Collaboratives Update
The SLP Trusts continue to deliver transformational patient care programmes together, for Forensic (Adult Secure), CAMHS (Tier 4) and Adult Eating Disorders (AED) specialist services, as Provider Collaboratives. Building on the innovation and partnership working of SLP New Care Models programmes, recent developments include:
- A new Single Point of Referral to SLP Trusts’ AED inpatient care to help ensure consistent, rapid and equal access to the right care, also benefiting referrers including commissioners and clinicians from outside South London
- Our Forensic programme is introducing innovative VR (Virtual Reality)-based technology enabling service users to be trained in motor vehicle repairs, supporting their future employability and return to the workplace.
November 2020
SLP Trusts take on major specialist commissioning budgets
More than £400 million commissioning budgets to develop and improve specialist services for local people were devolved to the SLP Trusts as our three new Provider Collaboratives (PCs) went live.
The ‘Fast Track’ SLP Provider Collaboratives for Forensic (Adult Secure), CAMHS (Tier 4) and Adult Eating Disorders represent three of just nine launched across England – highlighting the strength of our established partnership working, and putting us at the forefront of implementing new national NHS England policy.
The launch also reflects the impact of our joint Forensic and CAMHS New Care Models programmes, with the three Trusts working together in new ways to transform care, experience and outcomes for hundreds of patients. This partnership working culture - with a focus on improving patient outcomes - has enabled teams to deliver transformational changes, bringing care closer to home, in better environments, and fewer inpatient admissions.
The new policy and devolved budgets allow us to take decisions locally about how to develop and invest in services based on South London population health needs, through a clinically-led approach, with services co-designed with patients and partner organisations.
More about SLP Programmes
Clinical pathway programmes
https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/shared-forensic-pathways/
https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/forensics-central-referrals-hub/
https://www.england.nhs.uk/blog/transforming-services-for-forensic-patients/
Nursing Development Programme
https://improvement.nhs.uk/resources/nursing-development-programme/
https://www.england.nhs.uk/atlas_case_study/south-london-mental-health-and-community-partnership-slp-nursing-development-programme/
Nursing Times Workforce Award for Best Workplace for Learning and Development
Annual Review 2018-19
Annual Review 2017-18
Founding the SLP
Our three CEOs at the time explain some of the early aims and vision in coming together in as a partnership to collaborate in areas where we can improve care and outcomes by working at scale.
South London Mental Health and Community Partnership (SLP)
We are part of a unique partnership of three South London mental health trusts, bringing together clinical expertise, experience and innovation to benefit patients.
Colleagues from Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, and South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust collaborate where we can improve quality, use resources most effectively – and provide better care, experience and outcomes for patients and staff – by working together.

Working collaboratively and at scale across South London’s 3.6 million+ population means we can transform outcomes for people with specialist, sometimes complex, mental health conditions. We aim to be transformational in developing new ways of working; implement consistent best practice clinical pathways; and commission the right services to meet local population health needs.
Our Trusts’ clinicians, operational and corporate services teams; local, regional and national partners; and patients come together to co-design evidence-based approaches that deliver better care, closer to home for our communities. We aim to maximise value for the NHS, enabling reinvestment in enhanced and new specialist local and South London-wide services.
Major specialist areas of work where the three Trusts collaborate include:
- Forensic (Adult Secure) Provider Collaborative
- CAMHS (Tier 4) Provider Collaborative
- Adult Eating Disorders Provider Collaborative
- Nursing Development Programme
- Complex Care Programme
- Corporate Services Programme
More information and latest SLP news here