Herefordshire & Worcestershire - our first year with Care Opinion

I'm Jane Thomas, and I'm Head of Patient & Public Engagement, Experience and Participation at the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care Trust.

We began our journey with Care Opinion just over a year ago, and this week we hosted a webinar sharing our story of how we have implemented Care Opinion in our patient care processes, and what we've learned along the way. Our sessions and speakers were:

You'll find the recording at the end of this blog. Please feel free to watch the whole recording [40 mins, 51 secs] or navigate to a particular session using the timestamps listed.

Our webinar begins with an Introduction to Care Opinion from James Munro, CEO of Care Opinion [timestamp: 02:28.9]

James celebrates the progress we've made over our first year, which was lovely to hear. And he emphasises the value of enabling patients to give feedback safely and simply, in ways that lead to learning and change. James shows how feedback can boost staff morale, with over 70% of stories being entirely positive. And he touches on the important role patient feedback via Care Opinion can play in Risk Management and patient safety.

The next sessions are around our Strategic Commitment to Listening [timestamp 13:05.5] and Implementation of Care Opinion [timestamp 18:24.4] delivered by myself, Jane Thomas, Head of Patient & Public Engagement, Experience and Participation at the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care Trust.

There was so much to share about what we're learning as we work with staff to embed Care Opinion in a broad range of services throughout the Trust. I explore our reasons for choosing to work with Care Opinion, and how staff at all levels are using feedback to make changes in our services. This session explores our phased approach to implementing Care Opinion, and how we work with staff to integrate asking for feedback into their existing patient care processes.

Our fourth session, on an Operational Experience of Care Opinion [timestamp 30:11.5] was given by Debra Abbots, Operational Lead, Malvern Neighbourhood Team.

This is a fascinating look at how one service, our Neighbourhood Teams, have integrated Care Opinion into their care of elderly and frail patients in their homes. Debra shares the initial concerns expressed by some of her staff, and talks about how Care Opinion's moderation policies and story criticality ratings mitigated many of these. She goes on to share an innovative way of asking for feedback via the beautiful greetings cards staff give to patients at their last home visit.

Our journey with Care Opinion has only just begun in Herefordshire and Worcestershire. We've learned so much during our first year and it's lovely to share some of our successes with you. I hope you enjoy watching the webinar!

Download the slides here: care-opinion-in-hw-webinar-nov-24.pptx