Welcoming Miles Sibley to the Care Opinion board

I'm delighted to announce that Miles Sibley, co-founder of the Patient Experience Library, is joining the Care Opinion board as a non-executive director.

Miles is well-known as a committed advocate for healthcare services that are both person-centred and evidence-based. He is the author of Inadmissible Evidence and has written numerous articles on patient and public involvement for the BMJ and other journals.

In recent years Care Opinion and the Patient Experience Library have worked together to offer additional value to our users by making it easy to move from a Care Opinion story to Library reports, or vice versa.

Miles explains why joining the CO board feels like a natural strengthening of the relationship between the two organisations:

"I have long been a fan of Care Opinion, for three main reasons. First, it allows patients and the public to comment on healthcare experiences in their own words and on their own terms. They don't have to follow predetermined questions in a survey that someone else has designed. And they don't have to navigate complicated processes such as those used for formal complaints. They can say whatever they want, whenever they want. As a model for asking people "what matters to you?", Care Opinion is brilliant."

"Second, Care Opinion takes a relational approach to building dialogue and trust between patients and professionals. All too often, providers slip into a corporate communications style that can sound stilted and defensive. But the best Care Opinion responders reply to posts informally and compassionately. That makes patients and families feel heard and cared for."

"And finally, the Care Opinion team are a great bunch of people. You can tell that they care about their work, and they care about making healthcare a place where staff and patients can share experiences and learning for everyone's benefit. I'm really happy to be joining the team, and I'm looking forward to sharing my own experience with Care Opinion."

I'm immensely grateful to Miles for his support for Care Opinion, both practical and moral, and I know he will hold us to account while encouraging us to go further in pursuit of our mission.