Why I enjoy responding to stories

I am a nurse by background and am currently an Integrated Services Manager for Stroke Services. I am busy trying to morph our Community Stroke Service into the national Integrated Community Stroke Service Model (ICSS) and I also offer some clinical leadership within our inpatient stroke rehabilitation unit.

We are passionate about Lived Experience, and we want to embed this in all our transformation work so that we work in collaboration with our stroke survivors in shaping our services fit for the future. Care Opinion responses not only really motivate individual staff and teams but make their jobs really rewarding and satisfying. It is important for me to gather Care Opinion experiences and feedback into our Stroke Programme Board, who will be shaping our services for the future.

I actually really look forward to responding to a story. It makes me feel like I am still a clinician in that important communication with patients and families that I don’t now have on a day-to-day basis. It makes me put into context the work that I do as a senior manager. I was given a Star Responder Award for my response to story about an author's husband who had experienced a stroke and accessed a number of our services. The team at Care opinion have asked me what I think makes a good response. 

Read the author's story and Sarah's response: careopinion.org.uk/1243880

I think it is really important to demonstrate that you have really listened to and processed their story. It’s important to comment on the small details that are not the main story e.g the fact that someone is recently bereaved – showing compassion that this is a really challenging time. Respond to all comments whether they are positive or negative and always state that the comments will be fed back to the appropriate person when praised. State how valuable any comments are whether they are positive or negative and how are you going to actively tackle and problem-solve any problems raised in a honest and transparent way…..be human, rather than the processing response that we have got used to within industrialised healthcare systems. I like to show a bit of humour if that is appropriate, as that is part of my personality and I always like to courteously finish in wishing them well, further improvements etc.

I was genuinely chuffed to receive a star responder award as this felt meaningful to me in my relationship with my service-users. For anyone new to being a responder – have an open-mind. We spend all your time communicating with people, so what is there to be apprehensive about? It’s simply about being kind, open, honest, transparent and human. 

Find out more about Star responders and how to nominate a staff member: careopinion.org.uk/info/star-responder