The power of storytelling in mental health awareness

Lesley has worked in patient experience and public and patient involvement for the last 15 years after a career in the customer service industry. She now works as Head of Public Involvement and Engagement at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence having previously worked as Experience of Care Lead for National Clinical Programmes and Provider Improvement at NHS England.  In these NHSE roles Lesley focussed on experience of care across staff, patient and carer experiences looking through the lenses of qualitative, quantitative and narrative data. Triangulating the three types of experience and the types of data  to provide insight to understands experience of care. She has developed storytelling approaches across provider organisations and NHS England sharing digital stories for improvement and through the work of the NHSE Quality Board has initiated four programmes of national policy work through the sharing of digital stories. In her role at NICE is looking to broaden involvement and engagement across guidelines, tech and medicines as well as broader engagement of people and communities across communities of practice, geography, health inclusion groups and health inequalities. She also plans to embed storytelling as a source of evidence across the activities within NICE. She has shared her personal story of the death of her husband Seth via a play, a film and educational package called Seth\‘s Story. Find out more about her personal  improvement work which has three aims :- 

• Raise awareness of signs and symptoms of pancreatic cancer.
• Improve psychological support for patients and families given a late terminal diagnosis with a short prognosis.
• Improve end of life care
• Raise awareness of grief and bereavement

You can find out more here about Seth\‘s Story