The high number of black people with mental health problems dying in police custody was the spur for action research undertaken by a practitioner working in mental health advocacy. The research aimed to improve outcomes for this service user group. He found that the police were often unaware of service users’ mental health needs. As a result of this he developed an advance decision information document for service users to keep on their person, which provided information about their condition, history and key contacts. His work led to him being invited to sit on the local mental health commissioning body as a community representative.