The lessons learned from the Patient Forum will be disseminated to social psychiatry services
Forte is giving 6.5 million Swedish kronor to a study that's going to check out the impact of Patient Forums and how they help with business development. The hope is to learn from successful examples of Patient Forums in regional operations and then adapt the method to municipal operations. The study is a joint effort between NSPH, NSPH Skåne, and the municipality of Lund.
There was fierce competition among the applicants, so it feels really great that we were awarded funding
-There was fierce competition among the applicants for Forte's call for proposals, so it feels really great that we were awarded funding, says Katarina Grim, associate professor at Karlstad University and project manager for the study on patient forums.
What do you hope to achieve with the project?
-NSPH Skåne, together with Region Skåne, has successfully developed and introduced patient forums in all of Skåne's 24-hour care facilities and some outpatient care units. This is so that patients can participate in an ongoing dialogue about their care experiences, needs, and wishes. We will study NSPH Skåne's model for three years. Together with them, Lund Municipality, and users, we will adapt, test, and evaluate the method so that it can also work in a municipal, social psychiatric context, says Katarina Grim.
Why is this important?
-Social services have long been asking for support in developing sustainable methods for user ilv. It is not possible to simply copy the healthcare model with Patient Forums. In social psychiatry, a user may have many different interventions and there are not always obvious meeting places. We need to co-produce to find a model for social psychiatry. If we can make it work in Lund Municipality, it will inspire other municipalities in the country, says Katarina Grim.
