British Journal of Nursing, 2015, Vol 24, No 22 1163 © 2 01 5 M A H ea lth ca re L td Healthcare policy requires that service users are involved as partners in all aspects of professional practice (Department of Health, 2010), and therefore health professional education. The aim is to respect and respond to service-user perspectives to support person-centred care and prevent care deficits as have been reported recently (Francis, 2013), and to challenge the medical and professional power base in education that tends to privilege the professional over the service-user perspective (Perry et al, 2013). Nurse education is complex, not least given the large student numbers; how can service users effectively influence pre-registration nursing programmes and what are the challenges? Service-user involvement has featured within mental health and learning disabilities nurse education for some time (Perry et al, 2013) but is less extensive in other fields. However the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2010) Standards for pre-registration nursing education mandate that all nursing students must learn to: