Patient Opinion's March Workshop

On Wednesday 8th March we had the pleasure of hosting a Patient Opinion Workshop. Some wonderful folk from different health and social care services attended and we were lucky enough to have some of our wonderful Patient Opinion exemplar organisations, both old and new, presenting.

The aim of the day was to explore the exciting and all round inspiring ways organisations are using Patient Opinion to improve services and influence a wider culture change around the value placed on patient stories.

Whether they are creating innovative ways to engage with and learn from people within mental health services or encouraging children to share their story about coming into hospital, we were reminded of the ever-increasing ways that Patient Opinion can provide opportunities for change and improvement.

For those who could not be there (and for those that just want a reminder!) we have summarised the presentations from our fabulous guest speakers below along with their presentations from the day.

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Sharon Kidd, Patient Experience & Engagement Manager, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust started the afternoon off with her presentation about how the trust first began to work with Patient Opinion and how Sharon got their chief exec on board (he gets alerts to every single story shared!). Sharon also described how the trust share their feedback to boost staff morale and gave us a great update on how they are getting on with piloting the Patient Opinion and Monkey Wellbeing partnership which encourages children on their Rainforest ward to share their story and feedback about their experience in hospital.

Sharon's slides

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Next to present were Sophia Feurtado, Head of Patient Experience and Deborah Lowe, Deputy Director of Nursing from St Andrew’s Healthcare. Following an introduction form Deborah about who St Andrew’s are and why Patient Opinion is important to them, Sophia explained their story, from how she first began to introduce the idea of Patient Opinion to senior members of staff and the challenges she faced, to how Patient Opinion is now being implemented in some wonderfully creative ways thanks to their Patient Experience team.

St Andrews slides

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James Munro, Our Patient Opinion CEO then took to the podium to share some great examples of the outcomes of online feedback, not only for patients, but for staff, services, organisations, education, research and the health system as a whole.

James' slides

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Then came a very important break to enjoy some seriously yummy home baked treats (A big thankyou to the fabulous people that brought treats!)

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Next up it was time to hear from Paul Sanguinazzi, Head of Involvement and Experience, and Jane Danforth, Involvement and Experience Officer at Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. Paul and Jane spoke about their continuing journey working with Patient Opinion within mental health care. They shared some fantastic examples of feedback both heart warming and critical, as well as the steps they plan to take to move forward with their exemplary work. They discussed their brilliant approach to responding and introducing new members of staff to Patient Opinion from day one (new staff are told to read the stories about their team before they even start!) and how they aim to continue to expand the ways that they collect feedback from service users whether that’s through volunteers or our exciting work with Talking Mats.

Jane & Paul's slides

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Our keynote speaker Dean Fathers, chair of both Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust spoke to us about the importance of using Patient Opinion to really hear what service users think of the service. He explained Patient Opinion allows services to continuously listen to and improve because of the stories that people are sharing, which in turn, benefits everyone.

He explained that stories are what influence “who we are” and that’s why they have to be so central to the ongoing improvement work within the two trusts. He also gave two great examples of the importance of valuing patient experience whether that’s in a board meeting or out on the corridors in busy hospital environment.

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Finally, it was the turn of Sarah Ashurst, our Subscriber Services Manager, to round things off with some exciting updates on our latest site features including an update on our innovative pilot in collaboration with Talking Mats.

If you are interested in learning how you can take the next steps to work with Patient Opinion, or if you have any questions at all following the event then please do get in touch with us at team@patientopinion.org.uk