People’s Voice Ambassador: Alex’s Story

Alex Evans, is one of our Peoples Voice Ambassadors and he is a Birmingham patient and NHS manager.  This is his story on how he became involved in this work:

“I have had a number of throat and skin cancer surgeries at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham over the past 10 years.  The care and compassion shown to me by consultants and nursing staff were second to none. I was only in my early thirties at the time and feeling a huge sense of gratitude to the NHS I wanted to give back. I decided to become a public Governor at University Hospitals Birmingham and was elected in 2015, serving for three years until 2018 when the trust went through a merger with Heart of England Foundation Trust.

I was then invited to be part of the first cohort on the Citizens Leadership Academy. This is emerging now as NHSE&I’s People’s Voice Ambassadors. It will be a valuable next step the NHS takes to ensure co-production is a key part of the design and delivery of NHS services in the future.

I am pleased to be one of the first People’s Voice Ambassador’s within the Leadership Academy. Being an advocate for patients, service users and communities is a privilege and I hope that the new academy brings with it opportunities for Patient Voice Ambassadors to see their ideas and suggestions brought to life. I am looking forward to finding out how NHS Executive Directors across the NHS will tap into this new pool of experts by experience, to help improve services. Often, people volunteer their time and energy but receive little to no recognition or reward.  Co-production should be valued and resourced as it can produce outstanding NHS services which are inclusive, accessible and of high quality.”

If you’d like to know more about the People’s Voice Ambassadors please follow this link to read more.