the way Patient Opinion works: your story goes to the right people it needs to – right of response is allocated by the organisation – every time you write a response the service user in notified
Maria Slater, Central Manager NHS Foundation Trust – piloted Patient Opinion with the Fibrous Partnership Trust to see how it could work with mental health

  • NHS is very protective – it’s like a family. Previously had an impenetrable armour – you don’t complain about NHS because you might have to use it again – but you need to give feedback, the ony way to do that has been to complain
  • As a frontline nurse i’d get immediate feedback from the patient and their family, – would be instantaneous, spontainious – once I moved into management role I got no feedback - nurses, patients tell you what you want to hear – as management how do improve services if you don’t get direct feedback?
  • Opportunity into insight of patients journey – staff have to open up to level of scrutiny that is personal – complaints are usually 2 months old by the time you get them on the shop floor, with Patient Opinion it’s next day – it’s not about outcomes it’s about people’s individual experiences
  • Our first posting was very negative about services – but it hit the nail on head about gut reaction of staff, culture issues, and attitudes – from that the engagement and involvement of staff was positive – especially as they saw it as personally scrutiny
  • We have very strong service and user forum locally who have tried to make an impact and make change – before Patient Opinion they had real trouble, this gave front-line response – our stakeholders were ready for this improvement
  • We never learn lessons in the NHS we keep repeating mistakes- however when it’s real and not in a book staff respond far more passionately rather than learning about change dynamics and leadership theories
  • Our service users really grasped it – used it to communicate to us – and it gave us an opportunity to communicate back to them. Accessed and shared care plans and therapy techniques
  • Posting goes to team, team then formulate response, goes to service manager, then to service as whole for sharing – can respond in 2wks

Discussion re how many stories you need a year to actually instigate change; need to manage #mps09
If gets to unmanageable level then suggestion to crowd source the top stories wld like to see response to #mps09 (tweets from GeorgeJulian)

Big problem with why councillors drag their feet = feel like they’ll be overwhelmed. Patient Opinion potential solution is crowdsourcing most important posts – how much of the response can be supported by the community?
Paul Hodgkin: We haven’t gone down the route of letting people come in sideways – in order to where appropriate we nee dto get info out of the staff - the solution in hull isn’t going to be the same as the solution in st helens

were does that link to patient choice? the stories help people decide a bit. why are PH – people telling their stories- to create change and give something bcak, that doens’treally fit with the consumerism approach
PH – ill people are  really lousy shoppers – you just want someone to care for you

Maria Slater  – drive wasn’t about targets or numbers, was about making life better for people. 5 main localities in 5 boroughs – because of strong user and carer focus they did the advertising for us so wasn’t advertised to a major extent – don’t know if that would make a difference.

Every posting was printed off for everyone who didn’t have acces to Patient Opinion to read – we advertised it internally so the spirit was ‘for those who are using it lets’ improve it’ – you’ve got to be a user to make change. For me as a nurse and also as a manager we are accountable to the public – a web-based feedback de-stygamises the myth and makes you accountable – is a realistic and effective model of change management

Mandy Wearne, NHS Northwest: working with strategic health authority – core group of PCTs looking at transforming services with web2 based services – ways to get stories, feedback or transform service for someone to get better experience

We need to trust front line staff more – sometimes it’s because feedback goes to PPI , PPE and complaints / litigation you reach wrong mindset – they have stock answers for things which defeats the object. (NHS litigation bill = 1.2bn per year) You need to hear the voice of the staff that cared for you if someone’s been brave enough to give the voice of the patient

George Julian – need to give people chance to learn, reflect, and then spread – people don’t get chance to reflect enough in their personal lives

Transition from one service to another is the current problem – can we translate this service into other uses… Patient Opinion is looking at the restorative justice system – can we feed these ideas into a restorative NHS?