Years ago, in fact until very recently, Saturday Night Live probably meant a show from the London Palladium or a well known US TV show, not anymore. On Oct 1st Saturday Night on Radio 5 Live meant from a busy A&E Department at the Royal Edward Albert in Wigan. The Stephen Nolan show which transmits from 10pm Friday to Sunday inserted their man for comment and opinion real time.

Given the nature of our business I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to listen to the show to see what transpired - afterall this was what we are about and are trying to achieve - feedback and comment on NHS services and this promised to be straight from the horses mouth.

The show even inserted a reporter to Wigan town centre, I assume to interview drunks as they were being taken to A&E.

"I'm surprised" purred Nolan, his surprise wasn't that people were arriving at A&E but three at arrived with Cardiac Arrest within an hour. He reported live as one was taken from the Ambulance and being wheeled into A&E. "We're machines that can break down at anytime" and then "It's like a conveyor belt" Thankfully the Ward Sister interjected with the fact that getting three heart attack cases in such a short space of time was extremely rare.

However at this point Nolan raised possibly one of the best points of the entire show, some people arrive for an ingrowing toenail and resources are taken away from the treatment of higher importance cases to deal with more frivolous injuries or those that are self inflicted. We all buy into the NHS and want our bit out of it when we feel we need it.

A motorbike accident victim wished it was more like casualty - "You see 3 million doctors on casualty doing nothing" on being told he'd wouldn't be dealt with for 3 hours or so. "I wish I could be seen a bit quicker ... I just want to be seen" The reason for his wait of course, perhaps unknown to him, was that three more high priority heart attack victims were ahead of him in the queue.

Sadly just after this interaction, it was announced that the man wheeled from the Ambulance with a Cardiac Arrest had died. The Ward sister sounded genuinely choked and I suppose it brought home even more so the priorities the NHS faces. Treat a man whom had crashed his motorbike and was frustrated at being told he had a three hour wait or try to save a mans life?

Over 23 million people use A&E in the UK annually for varying reasons, sometimes sports injuries, but around 20% of cases involved alcohol in some way. The programme was on air until 1am and I didn't listen to it to the very end but it continued to interview patients, managers, staff and relatives of the people in that A&E, it confirmed several things, that I probably already knew: 1/ - I have always said at the emergency end of the NHS it can rarely be bettered. 2/ - Sometimes we have no idea whom might be ahead of us in the queue to be seen but we all think we are the most urgent priority that the NHS faces. Perhaps communication could be better at times to put us in our place a bit more.

But finally above all else at 3/ - We all want to have our say on the NHS so why don't we?

For the remainder of this week the show can be heard by visiting the Five Live Website or via a direct link here

You know that feeling that you get when you find a photo that you'd forgotten all about and it reminds you of a really happy day?

I just stumbled across the fantastic video made by BeInspiredFilms at our brilliant event last year, Out of the box. It was such a beautiful sunny day, the perfect venue (the Deaf Cultural Centre, Birmingham) and a truly inspiring event. We navigated people through the day but invited our expert friends to speak who came from the NHS, blogging circles, the third sector and many supporters from the world of Twitter.

The video followed a lightbulb moment when talking to BeInspired where we suddenly thought, 'how great would it be to video each of our guests sharing their strongest wishes and wants for patients and carers, put them all together and complete the video by the end of the day to play back to them all as we close?' We loved the thought, but had no idea whether it was possible. Turns out, with Rav and Anthony from BeInspired working tirelessly all day, it was!

The end result is this great short video. I'd forgotten all about it until I stumbled across it again today - and it's put a big smile on my face. Hope it does the same to you!
Amy

p.s. Seeing the old logo makes me feel all nostalgic!

Out of the Box 2010 - Transforming patient experiences in the UK from Be Inspired Films on Vimeo.

Patient Opinion are at the annual NHS Confederation exbition in Manchester for the the next three days (6th-8th July 2011).

Come and meet the team and learn about our innovative work and hear more about our future plans. Our stand is B6 and any of our team will be delighted to see you. Our organisation is being represented by our Chief Executive Paul Hodgkin, two subscriber support officers, including our West Midlands area Officer Dani and Sarah plus one specialist in Mental Health - Amy. In the following days we also have presence from our Training & Support Officer Tim and an Engagement officer Jason.

Live comment from the event will be available on our twitter feed @patientopinion (https://twitter.com/#!/patientopinion)

We look forward to talking with you.

I ran a workshop at the recent Patient Opinion regional event. The aim of the workshop was to try and get some creative thoughts and solutions to the task of getting a good body of postings for the different services.

Here were some of the conclusions that we came to:

• There is not one simple formula for each service, its worth thinking from the start about each patient/service user journey and the way that they access their treatment and care. Have a simple strategy for each service.
• Although it’s good to make sure that people can post at any time, for example access to computers on wards and other sites, it’s also good to think about the point at which people might want to feedback. This might be because they want to say thank you or because they want to find a way to say what could be better. Its what we at Patient Opinion call the “thoughtfully passionate” moment, when motivation to feedback is high.
• Although giving information out is all very well, nothing beats some face to face enthusiasm. So whether its reception staff, volunteers or front line staff at the end of a consultation, saying how much they would like to hear the views of the person is a really good motivator.
• Thinking about resources and also what can be done in a physical space is useful. Sometimes you can do a lot without much effort or expense. Feedback corners with opinions and responses printed out from the website promote interest and buy in from people attending a treatment centre. Have leaflets available for those who want to take something away.
• Think about the people you are hoping to encourage. For example, young people are already used to doing things online. How might you guide them to the site?
• There was an acknowledgement that this is about a culture shift and therefore its important to get staff involved make sure they are aware of postings about the trust and service. Staff really start to get it, when they see the positive postings and realise that this helps the shift away from complaining and defensiveness. It was suggested that social marketing techniques will help with the spread of the use of the site. This will really be helped by the launch of the new site and the easy connection to facebook and twitter.
• We also talked about the need to be innovative and creative. PO is a great tool, but it can be used in lots of different ways. Services can invite their users to tell stories on a different theme each month-medication, listening, accessibility. Also try out feedback Fridays where each Friday users are particularly encouraged to feedback their experiences.

So we came out of the workshop with some interesting ideas to think about. Thank you to everyone at the event who took part and if anyone would like to talk about the above do let me know.

Good luck.