A Sussex health partnership has listed 'service leader' and 'expert by experience' among alternatives to the word 'patient' in mental health care.⁠ The language guide, launched on 6 March 2025 after two years of local work, drew fresh attention from 14 September 2026. Officials say it is a discussion prompt, not a rulebook, after critics called the suggested labels confusing.

The Sussex mental health language guide was co-produced from 2023, published on 6 March 2025, and lists service leader, expert by experience, consumer and customer among alternatives to patient.⁠ Local partners say the 26-page document is optional guidance, not a ban.⁠

What The Sussex Language Guide Recommends

Sussex Health and Care, the integrated care system for more than 1.7 million people in Brighton and Hove, East and West Sussex, issued the guide after a reference group of NHS staff, councils, charities and people with lived experience.⁠

Workshops gathered feedback from more than 90 local people.⁠ Some participants did not want to be called a patient or a service user. Further listed terms include client, survivor and person receiving support.⁠ Staff are invited to rethink 'assessment' and 'discharge', which some said felt like a test or a closed door, and to consider consultation or transfer of care. 'Hard to reach' is swapped for 'under-represented' or 'under-served'.⁠

The guide says: 'These are not a list of rules, but instead an opportunity to prompt us all to think about the language that we currently use.'

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Officials Stress It Is Guidance Not Policy

Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust said the document is a guide, not Trust policy, written with people using services after feedback that some wording put people off seeking support. At launch, Dr Oliver Dale, the trust's chief medical officer, described two years of honest conversations with people who have lived experience of mental health support.⁠

Partners include NHS Sussex, seven NHS provider trusts and the three local councils.⁠ Voice-over artist Zora Suleman wrote on X: 'Oh seriously?!!! #Sussex #NHS trust to stop calling people patients. Instead, clinicians should refer to a patient as an expert by experience, customer or consumer.'⁠

Shimeon Lee, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said patients want doctors focused on treatment, not on whether ordinary medical words might cause offence.⁠ The guide also covers talking with people who do not speak English as a first language, disabled people and neurodivergent people, including identity-first wording such as autistic people.

How National NHS Writing Guidance Differs

The national public-facing style still treats 'patient' as plain English. The NHS digital service manual says teams generally address people as you, use people in the third person, and sometimes use patients where that word avoids confusion.⁠

It prefers people or patients over service user.⁠ The national manual is designed for NHS digital services, whereas the Sussex guide is intended as a broader discussion and learning resource for conversations, meetings and training. The Sussex document is aimed at conversations, training and appointments inside one system.⁠

Sussex officials say the language guide will be reviewed and updated.⁠ Staff have already been pointed to it in newsletters, co-production forums and trauma-informed practice work.⁠ The trust's line remains that it is optional guidance written after local feedback, not a ban on the word patient.

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