Service user and carer involvement in the OSWE Project in England: the experiences of two service user researchers

The OSWE project set out to involve service user educators in the local projects in an advisory capacity and in the national projects as equal members of the action learning set.We describe our different experiences of involvement in two local OSWE projects in Anglia Ruskin University and Sussex University; and our experience of involvement in the national learning set in England.We review the involvement of service users and carers in the other participating universities in the OSWE project. Our reflections identify a number of the successes in actively involving service users and carers; we also consider the barriers to involvement which include: lack of time, lack of sufficient funding, breaks in continuity, inability to build effective relationships, lack of effective recruitment training and support processes.We discuss the best practice that has been already been developed to enhance user involvement in health and social care research and relate it to our experiences in this project.We then draw out our own recommendations that may promote improved processes in the future for involving service users and carers.