Service User, Carer, Expert by Experience and Member, People Participation Team; East London NHS Foundation Trust, England

Craig Donohoe is service user, carer, an expert by experience and member of the people participation team at East London NHS Foundation Trust. Craig is a trained Quality Improvement (QI) coach and experienced QI project leader. Craig led a QI project that focused on service users experience in QI projects, he coproduced the ‘CO-CREATORs’ charter, a ten point charter for authentic involvement in QI work which was then developed into a poem that became a song performed at conferences. Craig explains the importance of being involved in QI:

“I realised these words made a difference to others and understood that it could not have happened without me, that I am needed in the world, for me this is a powerful healing learning that I want to share with other service users; because you patients, carers, and service users, are needed as QI leaders, to improve the lives of others through improving the services. Through my own experience I have learned the healing power of doing quality improvement work to change the trajectory of my own potential life journey. Giving the opportunity to chair QI forums the possibility of my life started to change, using the PDSA cycle to do daily improvement work started to break me out of the paralysing perfectionism of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) cycle. Understanding now that I can never achieve perfection in everything I do all the time, but through gradual improvement work I can be ‘good enough’. As my parallel quality improvement and healing journey continued, I teach chairing skills and quality improvement, and coached and led quality improvement projects. At ELFT I teach that Louis Braille is an early pioneer of QI, as a child patient he used QI methods to improve the Braille system changing the world. Using QI to improve my bad experiences of services, allows me to make sense of my diagnosis and share my individual improvement story that can improve services for others – so they don’t go through what I went through. This transformational heart based journey is healing – as I can make a difference to others, I realise my life can be enough, and this realisation gives me a life purpose that is meaningful and therapeutic”.