UK Health Radio, a digital radio station with over 200,000 monthly listeners, recently had some familiar faces on the show when Paul Binfield and Millie Smith from ELFT’s People Participation team were recent guests.

Broadcaster Danielle Sax, presenter of the show 'From Stress to Authentic Success' interviewed the due. She talked to them about mental health, wellbeing and the role of the People Participation team in aiding people's recovery.

Both Millie and Paul talked about their personal experience of mental health and wellbeing and described how the People Participation team helps to strengthen ELFT services by having experts with lived experience take a leading role in designing service care. They also described how the team have helped to support over 150 people into full-time employment as they moved towards recovery in recent years.

Other issues discussed during the programme included the proactive work the team took to support people during the recent pandemic lockdowns by setting up the ELFT Befriending Service, how experts with lived experience work to support recruitment through their work on interview panels and how the PP team work with the emergency services, rail networks and universities.

"It was great talking to Danielle,' said Millie afterwards.

"She was really interested in understanding what People Participation is all about, and it gave us an opportunity to bring a greater awareness and understanding of how coproduction and service user involvement works."

"Now a global audience know about the innovative ways we can all work together to improve the quality of health services and how lived experience of ill health can be turned into a positive for personal and community growth."