Developing opportunities for people with diabetes to engage in Improvement Champion activity: a practical guide for diabetes teams

Abstract

By sharing their unique lived experience of using diabetes services, Experts by Experience can provide health care professionals and services with a valuable opportunity to enhance their practice and significantly improve service delivery. Despite an established evidence base in other areas of health care, and emerging evidence that engaging in Expert by Experience activity can beneficially impact people living with diabetes, this important area of practice is still very much neglected in routine diabetes care and the number of people who are able to access this opportunity is small. This paper, written by a team of people who have either acted as, or supported people to become, Experts by Experience, offers practical guidance to diabetes teams to assist them in supporting individuals to engage in this powerful activity while maintaining psychological health and healthy boundaries.