Respiratory care: every story counts

As a Sheffield GP, it has been great to see and hear about people’s respiratory experiences. I know David and Helen have been to see more groups and have spoken to patients on an individual basis, gaining some invaluable patient perspectives.  It is still really important that people continue to share their experiences as we are still very keen to hear as many stories as possible, so if you have a story or know someone who you think could tell us about their experiences; please let us know through Patient Opinion.

On Friday 13th March we did something new for the CCG in holding a live Twitter Chat @ NHSSheffieldCCG. The Twitter Chat is one component of a series of work we are doing to collect people’s insights and experiences of respiratory care in Sheffield. We really want to hear from respiratory patients, their carers and family members about what does and doesn’t work in managing their condition. We had a great reaction from our followers, with retweets we managed to reach an audience of 45,000 people! Unfortunately we only had one responder during our time on line; we will use this learning to ensure how we can best utilise Twitter in the future to prompt more discussion.

Needless to say, we have gathered some really useful stories that will be used as we make decisions about  planning for the future. In the last couple of weeks in particular we’ve heard about the inconsistency of patient knowledge of their condition and how to access what they need when they recognise the start of a chest infection.

There is only one week remaining of our engagement phase, so please keep the stories coming in. Every story counts and gives us a valuable point to consider.