Friday 21 November 2025 | 11:30-13:30 

Format: Presentation

Stream: People

Part One: Lived Experience Advisor Program: Harnessing Consumer Leadership for Best Care

Explore the origins, implementation, and evaluation of Western Health’s Lived Experience Advisor Program (LEAP)—a initiative that employs consumers with lived experience as subject matter experts in healthcare projects to enhance service delivery. As the first healthcare organisation to embed Lived Experience Advisor (LEA) roles beyond mental health and drug health services, this session highlights the program’s transformative impact, challenges faced, and key lessons learned. Participants will gain insights into how LEAP fosters patient-centered care, drives collaborative improvements, and bridges the gap between consumers and clinicians in mainstream healthcare. This session equips practitioners with actionable strategies to adopt similar programs within their own organisations, creating meaningful partnerships to improve healthcare outcomes.

Rebecca Barbara Western Health; Australia

Part Two: Your Lived Experience Story Can Change a Whole System

When people share their personal experiences from interacting with the health system, they contribute their knowledge, expertise, and insights into their care. This information enriches a diverse data pool used to inform healthcare design, delivery, and improvements. Storytelling based on lived experience, supported by NSW Health’s Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC) storytelling resources, plays a crucial role in helping people effectively contribute this data.

Respectfully leveraging lived experience stories provides a powerful, human-centred method to drive and enhance safety, elevate quality care, and foster continuous learning and growth within the CEC and NSW Health. Integrating stories, with learning from lived experiences at its core, enables the CEC to foster human connection, facilitate collaboration through shared experiences, promote deep reflection, and spark innovative perspectives from the human side on how care is delivered and received. Connection to story is essential in promoting a person-centred approach, nurturing a culture of safety, excellence, and compassionate care.

Tania Arnott Clinical Excellence Commission; Australia