Hi, my name is Jane Danforth. I work as an Involvement Officer for Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust. It’s a huge integrated mental health, learning disability and community health services organisation covering Local and Forensic services, Community Health services and Offender Healthcare. It’s my first time writing a blog on the Patient Opinion site. I hope you will find it interesting.

I’m really lucky to work in an organisation that supports an Involvement team with two Involvement Centres. It’s true to say I am blessed with great support from the top of our organisation; Professor Mike Cooke CBE (our CEO) my manager and also from Trust colleagues and Patient Opinion (PO)

How can I describe the PO team and what they offer to us? Well, for one, ‘real time’ feedback is starting to change the way we do things in the Trust. 2011 has been the best year for us yet. We were named as Pioneers of the Month for PO last year and we held the record for the fastest posting and response times of any Trust! We get Facebook and Twitter posts about us leading the way for patient feedback and it’s made my job so enjoyable. It has done our Trust the world of good and given us a platform to prove that our ‘Positive’ brand is not rhetoric and spin. PO has made a difference and offered value for money to the organisation. People say how much they like it and find it a great way to share how they feel about our services and what they would like to see get better.

Open and honest feedback sometimes means you have to take a deep breath and think hard about how you are going to respond to stories that are not always complimentary. The support of a great Communications Team makes all the difference. Julie Grant, Head of Communications is my sounding board and someone I can go to when challenges arise. Equally Sam Eagling, managing PALS and Complaints (Service Liaison) helps complete the circle of communication. I know that between us we can help to make things happen and people posting on the site get their voices heard. Things actually can change for the better and we have seen it happen ‘before our very eyes’!

I’m really pleased to say that the majority of our feedback is complimentary. I know staff get a real lift from postings that praise what they do and when we can’t always do what people ask, we can at least explain why some things are the way they are. I really believe it can stop people taking things further when issues arise and over next year we are going to try and evaluate this.

Our involvement volunteers take on many different roles. This year and in 2012 we will continue carrying the Olympic torch for PO.

Our PO Champions are making a difference using a ‘pass it on’ philosophy. Champions are made up of service users, carers, families and staff including Governors. For everyone they tell about PO they encourage others to tell someone else. Word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool, if you are good you can get always get better and positive feedback is a massive motivator. Equally when feedback is not good you have to listen and work together to resolve issues.

Next month I am going to tell you more about our iPad pilot. We launched a trial across the Trust in Local and Forensic services and believe me it’s been an exciting time! To be honest, It has increased my workload initially but it’s also given me such a buzz when I can see staff becoming responders and our youngest ever posting was from a 10 year old using our child and adolescent mental health services and in case you are wondering? Yes it was positive!

In January, we will be looking forward to the year ahead. My manager Paul Sanguinazzi, Head of Involvement, is keen that we really focus on getting a seamless reporting system that pulls together all our feedback in the Trust.

Other Trusts have started to ask me how we work with online feedback and I look forward to February 9th where we have been invited to speak at the regional PO event in Sheffield about how we have made it work for us in Nottinghamshire Healthcare.

And finally, I would like to share with you a letter of thanks that was given to me at the beginning of the week from a patient who was being discharged. This posting made my year: A letter of thanks for the staff on Ward B2

Our little tree has pride of place in the office. Now where is the 'greatest christmas hits' CD...

by James Munro

Health service staff are, perhaps understandably, cautious creatures and are taking their time in embracing the world of social media and online feedback.

But, looking at how the NHS has responded to public feedback on Patient Opinion over the past six years, we are starting to see some welcome changes in how both organisations and staff regard the online world.

The starting point is perhaps best illustrated by a reaction to one of our first postings back in 2005. Within a couple of hours the director of communications from the local NHS trust was on the phone, demanding to know what we thought we were doing. "This probably isn't legal, you know" he muttered darkly.

In those early days many NHS staff we spoke with saw the web in the same light as their local newspaper: probably out for a fight, best ignored for as long as possible. "We'll only respond to stories on the web if they're really serious" we were told, "and we'll never apologise, for legal reasons"...

You can read the rest of James' Artictle on the Guardian Healthcare network

Two days ago I sustained an injury whilst climbing. My standard response is to take a few pain killers and trust that things will sort themselves out. However, as other climbers will know, a hand injury can turn out to be pretty serious if ignored.

So 10 o’clock at night I needed some advice and if I am honest, a bit of reassurance I had not done something serious. I decided to call NHS Direct. Having talked to them before regarding a horse riding injury (yes, I am very accident prone) I was confident they would be able to help me.

Well, apparently 10pm is the time when everyone is in the throws of some sort of medical emergency and the automated message told me if I considered myself non-urgent I would not be able to talk to someone inside the next 4 hours.

I was annoyed and tweeted my annoyance including @nhsdirect. They saw my tweet and got back to me straight away.

Although they could not offer me any medical advice, it was nice to get a personal reply after feeling fobbed off by an automated message. A brief conversation followed between us and I was particularly struck by this tweet…

At Patient Opinion, we are always encouraging the NHS organisations we work with to respond personally to feedback on the site. This understandably can be frightening to do. Often it is so east to hide behind the organisation. If feels safer to say the trust is sorry or we are sorry, rather than I am sorry.

However, being told “sorry I can’t do more” I was reminded that NHS Direct is not some giant machine but an organisation made up of people. People who, on the whole, are just trying to do their best. More than ever I am convinced of the importance of social media (such as twitter) in helping the NHS interact with the population it serves. If done well, social media allows NHS organisations to show its humanity and connect with people on a personal level. This can prove to be invaluable in helping to resolving conflict.

Without my twitter interaction last night I would have still being frustrated by the responsiveness of NHS Direct and would have thought twice before ringing them again. People can be fickle like that.

Last week I spent sometime with the lovely folks at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust in their out patients department. We wanted to raise the awareness of Patient Opinion as a feedback channel that the trust are using to listen to and act on patient feedback. 

The hospital trust sees Patient Opinion as a quick and easy way for patients, family members and carers to let them know about the services they provide:

"We welcome complaints, comments and suggestions as they help us to improve the service we provide. WWL staff are being encouraged to let patients, visitors and carers alike know that they can share their story using Patient Opinion, as this gives them the opportunity to learn what people think of the services that they provide and to celebrate what the Trust is doing well"

"If there are things that could be improved on then this is a good way to find out what people think and also to look at any suggestions that they may make."

We think this is a great start to our work together and it is always wonderful to work with an organisation who really sees the value of anonymous feedback to improving services. 

You can read more about our work together on the Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust website and you can see their current feedback on Patient Opinion