Celebrating 35,420 stories shared about health and care across the UK in 2025/26

Each year at Care Opinion we take a moment to reflect on the stories people have shared about their care.

During the financial year 2025/26, 35,420 stories of health and care were shared on Care Opinion from across the UK. That represents a 14% increase on the previous year, and tens of thousands of moments where someone chose to speak up about what happened to them or someone they care about. Together these stories have already been viewed more than three million times on Care Opinion, helping experiences travel far beyond the moment in which they were written.

Just as importantly, these stories did not go unheard. Over the course of the year, health and care organisations posted 36,927 responses on Care Opinion, with 73% of stories receiving a response within seven days. That represents thousands of conversations between the public and the services that care for them.

Behind each of these numbers is something simple but powerful: a person chose to share their story, and someone in a service chose to listen.

A year of stories

What strikes me most strongly when reading the stories shared on Care Opinion during 2025/26 is how many of them celebrate the very best of healthcare. 82% of stories were completely positive, with people taking the time to recognise the dedication, kindness and professionalism of the staff who cared for them.

Looking across the stories, the words people use most often say a great deal about what matters in care. People write about staff being kind, helpful, professional and caring.

These stories remind us that health and care systems are not only built on clinical expertise and organisational structures. They are built on human relationships: a reassuring conversation, a nurse who goes the extra mile, or a doctor who takes the time to explain something clearly. These are the moments people remember, and the moments they want others to hear about.

Stories help us learn

Of course, not every story shared on Care Opinion during the year was positive. Around 18% of stories included some level of criticism or concern. But these stories are just as important. They highlight things that could be better: communication, information, waiting times or follow-up. Often these are not dramatic failures but small things that matter deeply to the people experiencing them.

When organisations respond openly to stories on Care Opinion, something important happens. A private experience becomes shared learning, and sometimes those stories lead directly to improvements being planned or made.

Looking across the 35,420 stories shared across the UK this year, a few things stand out. People want to recognise great care. They want to highlight what could be improved. And above all, they want to know that someone is listening. When organisations respond openly, they demonstrate that feedback matters. When they learn from these stories, they make improvements that benefit everyone. And when these conversations happen in public, other organisations can learn from them too.

This is becoming more important than ever, because across the UK, strategies, policies and frameworks increasingly recognise that patient experience must sit alongside safety and clinical effectiveness as a core part of quality. The direction of travel is clear: health and care systems are expected not only to hear what people say about their care, but to learn from it and show how that learning leads to improvement.

Stories are a powerful way of making that happen. They bring humanity, detail and context. They help organisations see not just what happened, but how it felt and why it mattered.

What could happen if we listened even more?

Reflecting on 2025/26, I feel enormously grateful to the 35,420 people who shared their experiences on Care Opinion, and to the many staff across the UK who took the time to read and respond to them.

These stories show what is possible when people speak up and services take the time to engage. They celebrate the extraordinary care that happens every day, and they highlight the opportunities to make things better.

But they also leave us with an important question.

What might happen if we tried even harder to listen?

What might healthcare look like if every story had the chance to reach the people who could learn from it? What improvements might be possible if every organisation treated stories not simply as feedback to manage, but as opportunities to learn?

For the many organisations already working with Care Opinion, these stories are part of everyday learning. They show what becomes possible when people are given a simple, safe way to share their experiences and when services respond openly to what they hear. And for those not yet using Care Opinion, these stories offer a glimpse of what listening at scale can look like when patient voice is visible, shared and acted upon.

At Care Opinion we believe stories have the power to change care. The stories shared during 2025/26 show that this change is already happening. The opportunity now is to make listening an even bigger part of how health and care works across the UK.