Lanarkshire NHS Board, North and South Lanarkshire Councils together with Lanarkshire Association for Mental Health, submitted a joint bid for development funding to create a mental health strategy and to involve service users and carers in its preparation.
As part of this process the User & Carer Involvement Team was established with three development workers in post by Oct of 1998. The team established a database of over 200 people who had expressed an interest in involvement although the numbers who became actively involved was relatively small (around 35).
An interim group was supported and ‘The New Lanark Group’ was established to continue this work.
In 2001 the service users and carers associated with the project were encouraged to develop an independent organisation to continue the work. A consultancy agency was engaged to work with them and at a meeting attended by more than 60 people in the summer of 2002 Lanarkshire Links was formed.
