National Centre for Independent Living (NCIL).

Bernd Sass manages policy and external relations at NCIL – a national consultancy, research and campaigning organisation specialising in personalisation and led by and for disabled people. Previous roles include mainstreaming recovery-oriented practice in an NHS Mental Health Trust with ‘peer support specialists’ driving change bottom-up and setting up national pilots as part of the Delivering Race Equality Action Plan to enhance pathways into and out of care.

He represents a user-led consortium in the Department of Health’s Strategic Partners Programme. His focus is on models for coproduction, models for responding to the needs of people not eligible for local authority social care support and models to improve the link between involvement and health outcomes. A particular interest is in initiatives to support disabled people to pool their personal budgets and become their own commissioners through setting up and running their own user-led mutuals to improve such different things as value for money, quality and continuity of care, relationships, community cohesion, health outcomes and demand-led provision.