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This is an important time to be taking stock of mental health service user/survivor campaigning and involvement. Big changes are taking place in social care. These will also impact on developments taking place in mental health services, with the plan to trial personal budgets in the National Health Services announced in Lord Darzi's report in July 2008. This article details the past, present and future of the survivor movement from Peter Beresford's personal point of view.

In these extracts from the inaugural Henry Hawkins Annual Lecture, Professor Peter Beresford, Professor of Social Policy at Brunel University, challenges the unthinking use of cliché and empty concepts by professionals and suggests that more effort is needed if we are going to get mental health services on track. The Henry Hawkins Lecture was organised by national mental health charity MACA (the Mental After Care Association) on Wednesday 24 October 2001, at the Gibson Hall in the City of London.

This article offers a personal view of the White Paper, Our Health, Our Care, Our Say, from a service user perspective. The Minister for Care Services, Liam Byrne, has stressed that the philosophy of the White Paper is based on strengthening personal control over support, prevention and the integration of health, social care and other services. This discussion examines the emphasis on health over social care in the presentation of the White Paper. It puts the document in the broader context of social care policy development over the last 20 years, and relates it to the views of service users expressed in consultations leading up to its publication. It considers the White Paper's potential ambiguity, its relation with resource issues and what next steps may be needed to take forward its positive principles.

The modernisation of mental health day services has been shaped by concerns about the social exclusion of people with enduring mental health problems. Initiatives have emphasised the use of mainstream facilities and an individualised approach. In contrast, service users have sought to safeguard opportunities for peer support in safe places. This participatory action research brought together service users, staff and others involved, to explore how these different views could be transformed into modernised services. The research took place in an outer London borough from 2003‐2007, using varied methods to explore social networking, including a visual method, action research groups and individual interviews. The research was designed and adapted to enable the involvement of people with different capacities and interests. Each stage generated findings for local modernisation, pointing to the importance of a safe space, service user knowledge of social and recreational activities and how self‐help groups develop and thrive. The final reconfiguration of local services reflected these research outcomes. Credible and useful outcomes can be achieved from collaborative research, allowing time and creating opportunities to shape interpretations of policy. Emerging initiatives are more likely to reflect service user perspectives and receive their support.

The policy of personalisation is essentially about matching services and support to address the unique needs and shared rights of each person as a service user. We can get some idea of the implications this new policy may have for housing by looking at some recent real‐world examples from social housing.

This commentary aims to explore the frequent omission of service users and their critiques from the modern history of health and social care integration.

The article is based on evidence, particularly the evidence emerging from service users' “experiential knowledge”.

The frequent contradiction that while user involvement has become an article of policy and practice, it is frequently ignored or overlooked.

The findings have major implications for research and evaluation.

It is possible to reduce bias by including service user perspectives.

The article denotes recognition of service user rights and the contribution they can make to research and policy and practice development.

The article is a reminder of the importance of including service user viewpoints in modern public policy.

Partnership between people who use services, their carers, and professionals is seen as an increasingly important aspect of providing a quality service across health and social care. The concept is enshrined in national policy, but the application of it is patchy at best, and has partly been undermined by constant restructuring and organisational change ‐ both in partnership working and in the organisations set up to deliver health and social care. Partnership that recognises service user/survivor expertise and assets and promotes equal and reciprocal working between staff and users is being recast as ‘co‐production’ or ‘co‐creation’ in UK public policy. The Jersey Partnership Project demonstrates a co‐productive approach, which is being seen as a way forward for adult social care service development and design.The Partnership Project, which commenced in the summer of 2009, and which is reaching the conclusion of its first stage at the time of writing, brings together experts by experience and mental health professionals, including a number of the latter who use services themselves, in a way that is designed to map out a new way of working, in partnership, across services. The Project is due to complete its first stage in June 2010, and further stages, perhaps bringing in a wider range of community services, are under discussion, following a presentation to the Jersey Minister for Health in November 2009.This article explores the notion of partnership as both ‘truth‐telling’ and ‘walking on common ground’, allowing those who provide and those who make use of services to enter into a sharing of experiences and knowledge, and an integrated spirit, that provides a clearer direction for developing adult mental health services in Jersey. The article then goes on to consider some of the barriers to more inclusive ways of working and looks at the current discourse and practices around the ‘co‐production’ agenda. Finally, the article covers the practical operation of the Partnership Project looking at structure and learning points and concludes by looking to the final six months of the Project and beyond.