Shaping Our Lives and the National Survivor User Network (NSUN), two key national disabled people’s and service user networks, have both experienced considerable numbers of user-led organisations closing over the last three years.

The two organisations decided to raise awareness of the crisis facing user-led organisations by writing a briefing and hosting an action workshop. The briefing set out the crisis being experienced by user-led organisations and sought to stimulate discussion leading to positive action to ensure the sustainability of these organisations. The workshop notes summarised the dialogue between user-led organisations that occurred on the day, identifying key themes around issues facing those organisations and ways those issues could be addressed.