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Posted on 22 Sep 2023

A fantastic service user led project at Rampton Hospital has won a National Service User Award.

The annual awards celebrate service user led projects within the NHS and private mental health, learning disability and autism services nationwide. The Awards are held to recognise the work that service users have achieved through these projects and what has been made possible at a local and national level. 

The LGBTQ+ Folk and Friends project at Rampton Hospital won the Celebrating Diversity Award category. This project was started to raise awareness and share a personal story in a fun light-hearted way but with an educational spin and important message. It is based on a well-known children's collection of books but with an original twist.

Becky Sutton, Chief Operating Officer said:

Huge congratulations to the service user and colleagues at Rampton Hospital who have been involved in this fantastic project. Colleagues are committed to providing the best possible care, and working with our patient on this fantastic project is just one example of how they do such brilliant work supporting patients to achieve their goals. The service user has worked so hard and done an incredible job to raise awareness in a fun and creative way.

Fantastic artwork has been created of characters being used to raise awareness, helping to give insight into the broad spectrum of diversity, relating to LGBTQ+. Showcasing the different gender identities and sexual orientations in a fun way. The patient is now in in the process of writing and illustrating a short book including all the characters in different scenario's, which can then be animated and brought to life in a short educational video. Their inspiration for the future would be to see their work be part of staff and patient induction so this cascades the message of acceptance.

The patient commented:

I know from my own personal transitioning journey that I would have been grateful to have the awareness, support and visibility around LGBTQ+. If I could make at least one person feel comfortable in being able to be themselves, it would bring hope for many giving us a united future.

Although this project is still in the infancy stages, we hope this project will have longevity and will make a huge positive impact within the Trust for many years to come.

We also had two other projects shortlisted in the awards. The Hearing Voices Support Group at Rampton Hospital was shortlisted in the Innovation in Recovery Award category. The monthly group allows those hearing voices to share their struggles and their strengths.

The Celebrating 75 years of Windrush Anniversary project at Arnold Lodge, Medium Secure Unit was shortlisted for the Celebrating Diversity Award category.

Find out more on the awards by visiting the National Service User Awards (nsua.org) website.