Philip Dylak, Director Nursing at Tameside Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, spoke about his practical experience of working with Patient Opinion at our recent stakeholder event. In this guest blog post, he sums up the key themes.

Tameside Hospital's involvement with Patient Opinion goes back a number of years, originally to a region-wide initiative to encourage trusts across the North West to make use of online feedback. At the time, Tameside Hospital was getting some adverse press coverage, and we wondered whether online comments from patients and carers would make matters better - or worse?

It soon became clear that it would be up to us. Early on, we took the strategic view that if someone places a comment about our services in the public domain, on Patient Opinion, then they expect and deserve a response from the organisation. We've followed that approach ever since, with the support of the executive team, and we're absolutely sure we were right to do so.

In fact, I'm proud that in the latest Dr Foster hospital guide, Tameside Hospital was in the top 5 hospitals responding to patient comments online.

There seems to be an attitude of anxiety or indifference to online feedback in parts of the NHS, but we've found that by following some simple principles, it isn't hard to create constructive public exchanges with our patients. So here are my top tips for working with online feedback:

• No stock responses. Unless you are certain it is appropriate, don’t use phrases like "Please contact our complaints department or PALS". After all, if people can access Patient Opinion's website, they can access your own website, and post comments to PALS or complaints for themselves.
• Make the response personal. It's the right thing to do – online communications don’t have to be cold and functional, and a personal response will encourage more people to post.
• Deal with the issues. Don’t give a bland response. If someone praises staff, tell them you will bring it to staff’s attention – and make sure you do. If someone refers to a current problem, such as a service disrupted by building works, don’t be coy – acknowledge it. Your response will inform other people too.
• Say what you will do. Or better still, say what you have already done.
• Timing is all. Respond within 2 days. This may allay anxieties for other people who may have the same issues. We keep an ongoing log – no posting is on for more than a week without a response.
• Use the data. There are tools built into Patient Opinion, or you can pull the data into your own systems. Use stories in training sessions about communications or service improvement, to be sure you know what your service users think about your services, to offset unjustified criticism, and as part of your Trust’s overall understanding of user perceptions.
• Actively engage online. We piggy-back messages onto our responses, for example about our improvement activities. The team at Patient Opinion will give you more tips and help you get the most from it, if you ask.

So that's it - it isn't rocket science, and it isn't as much work as you might imagine. As a director of nursing, I'm one of the busiest people on the planet. If I can do it, so can you.

Philip Dylak.

Slides of Philip's presentation

I have just personally reviewed every opinion posted about NHS Highland on the Patient Opinion website. And when I say personally, I mean personally!  Patient Opinion is one new approach we are taking to encourage patients to feed back.  It forms part of our overall approach to capturing patient experience.  At a time when resouces are tighter than ever some may be tempted to reduce the time they spend on the so called "softer" elements of patient care.  But in my view it's more important than ever that we listen to our patients.

I am delighted that staff are taking it so seriously.  In response to one of our recent stories a Head of Service commented, "Thanks for sharing this with me too.  It's always good to get feedback and it helps us to make improvements that make a difference to patients.  it was great to see lots of staff being appreciated not just the Consultant!"

A patient who raised an issue on Patient Opinion about prescriptions alerted us to a problem that we have now fixed.  And having carried out a wider review we have been able to bring about improvements across Highland.

Ultimately we want to get to a position where giving and receiving feedback is as natural as saying please and thank you.  

Online tools like Patient Opinion will help us to listen, respond and improve.  I commend it to you.

Elaine Mead, Chief Executive, NHS Highland

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