Bridging Gaps: Lived experience changing primary care service

• Lead: Michelle Farr, University of Bristol

Bridging Gaps is a group of women with lived experiences of extensive trauma, including addiction, homelessness, mental health problems, sexual exploitation, domestic and sexual violence, and poverty. We have been running for 3.5 years and have been improving access to primary care for others who have also experienced trauma and/or have complex needs, working in collaboration with GP practices. We are led by women with lived experiences and have a core aim to make services better for others. Our expertise is drawn from lived experience, clinicians’ knowledge and researchers, utilizing relevant evidence to improve access to primary care. Our novel approach is that we are focusing on co-production within implementation and impact, using experience, knowledge and evidence to change services, with people with lived experience driving this work. Our aims are to:

• Ensure people who experience health inequalities have better access to care 
• Share our experiences of improving access to primary care, and extend this work with new partners
• Share experiences about co-producing service changes, directly benefiting people who experience health inequalities.  

We will extend our work across more GP practices, to improve access to primary care for the people who need it the most. We will set up an introductory online website and work package for GP practices, as a first step toward improving their access, sharing our resources, and case studies. This will help us work in more depth with specific GP practices to provide tailored solutions to improve access. We will provide free advice and consultancy to GP practices, where they would benefit from further detailed co-design work with women with lived experiences of trauma. 

 We intend for our outcomes to be:

• Improved access to care for people who face multiple health inequalities
• A chance for GP practices to engage with people with lived experience to understand how trauma affects people 
• The women involved can gain confidence and experience in working in multi-disciplinary teams to influence quality of healthcare delivery at the practice level. This could lead to further work and career opportunities.

We will evaluate this work through:

• Website analytics on visits to our site and engagement with the material
• Feedback from GP practices about what they have changed as a result of our work together
• Feedback from the Bridging Gaps group members about their own experiences of getting involved.
• We will share our learning about co-production in implementation