Celebrating staff – The importance of sharing when things go well

Here at Care Opinion, our mission is to support people to share their experiences of health and care in ways which are safe, simple, and lead to learning and change. However, a large number of the stories that we publish are entirely positive (on average, consistently over 70%), and describe fantastic examples of great care and support given by staff on a daily basis.

Many of this feedback is captured within management reports, but it’s vitally important to ensure that these messages of thanks also reach those members of staff on the front line.

Here is a recent comment that was sent to us by an author, who had returned to the area that they had shared their experience about, and was disappointed that staff appeared unaware of their positive comments:

So how do we achieve this? Especially in areas where staff may not have online access for the duration of their work day:

• Discuss stories at staff meetings, highlight the great work that is being complimented!
• Use your Care Opinion blog space to spread the word!
• Do you have space for a feedback board? This is a great way to share stories with both staff and patients/service users.
• Add staff onto the subscription as members, so they can be notified of stories.
• Does your organisation have a newsletter? Can you have a section to spotlight Care Opinion stories? Or maybe get creative and start your own!
• Add the Care Opinion widget to your intranet/external website, you can filter the stories displayed by criticality and a number of other ways.
• Get onto social media! Spread the great feedback far and wide!

Of course this is not an exhaustive list. We have seen some fantastic examples of creative thinking out there in the wild! NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde for example have designed some fabulous mugs for staff who receive good feedback via Care Opinion in maternity & gynaecology. The options really are endless!

Here’s another few examples of what our subscribers have been doing to celebrate staff:

Closing the feedback loop is not only essential for your organisation, but for authors too. We all want our thanks and appreciation to reach those who provided us with great care and support! This is especially important to consider if you are a responder to stories. We have lots of helpful information on responding well to Care Opinion stories, which you can find here. If you’re also curious about recent research in this area, you can pop along to one of our research chats, or watch recordings of previous discussions too: Research chat 7: What do people want in response to their feedback? | Care Opinion

So get your thinking caps on and get creative! It’s not only the morale of the staff you are celebrating that will improve, it’s also a lovely experience for you too!

Research chat 21: Can positive patient feedback help improve healthcare? | Care Opinion