Joanne McAllister Head of Patient Experience and Engagement
Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) is putting people’s voices at the heart of local healthcare. A growing group of volunteers and staff, known as Lived Experience Partners (LEPs) are helping to reshape local health services, influencing senior decision‑making, and ensuring that real patient experience is driving healthcare improvements at the Trust. Our LEPs take on a voluntary role and are often members of our community who have been impacted by a problem which affects health and wellbeing. This can either have been related to their own health, a family member’s or someone that they provide physical or emotional care for, perhaps as an unpaid carer.
This group plays an important role in WWL’s new ‘Lived Experience Strategy’, which recognises the value of people’s real-life experiences. The strategy commits the Trust to work closely with patients, families, carers and communities, and treating their knowledge and insights just as importantly as the expertise of its professional and clinical staff members.
Since launching in 2024, the LEP programme has grown to 12 active members whose insights are already shaping major improvements across the Trust. Some of the most celebrated examples are Kellie, a carer who redesigned the “This Is Me” dementia passport at the Trust after finding the national version too long and often unread by staff. Her simplified, patient‑friendly version has been endorsed by Dementia United, the Lewy Body Society, John’s Campaign and the House of Memories, and is now being considered for national rollout across the NHS. Kellie was named WWL Allied Health Professional of the Year in 2025 for her improvement work at the Trust.
Another LEP, Jessie, has helped transform the paediatric emergency department for children with autism, learning disabilities and neurodivergence. Drawing on her own caring experience of her son who is autistic, she supported staff to embed inclusive communication, secured a mobile sensory cart, and has co‑led fundraising and design for a dedicated sensory room that has been built within the department. Her work has earned recognition at both the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Awards and the Nursing Times Awards in 2025.
WWL’s Lived Experience Partners are represented at Trust committees, and help to shape policies, influence staff recruitment, and aid redesigns of services. But at its heart, the programme is about something simpler and more powerful, it is about people who once felt unheard becoming the voices that guide and lead change. The message is simple: healthcare works best when it is shaped by the people who use it.
WWL is looking to expand its LEP group to represent all local communities and individuals within the Wigan Borough. If you would like to be involved as an LEP or just find out more information about the role, please contact patientexperience@wwl.nhs.uk.