Policy summit 2023: What’s the value of online patient feedback to healthcare policy & strategy?

On the afternoon of the 5th of October 2023 Care Opinion was delighted to co-host a summit along with the Person Centred Care Team at the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Public Health Agency.

In this half day webinar we were thrilled to be joined by speakers from both Scotland and Northern Ireland to explore what we already know from research about Care Opinion as information and as intervention, and explore how it is already being used to support system level initiatives in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Our goal for these sessions was to explore the question – “is online feedback relevant only at an operational level, or also at a strategic and policy level?”

Our summit was formed of three parts, and don’t worry if you missed it, we have published videos from each session and the presentations below.

 

Part 1: - Setting the scene

In part 1, we were joined by Shaun Maher, strategic advisor for person centred care & improvement, Scottish Government and Michelle Tennyson, Head of AHPs, Deputy Director with responsibility for public involvement & patient experience, Northern Ireland Public Health Agency. In their session called “A tale of two nations” they explored how Scotland and Northern Ireland are fostering system wide online patient feedback.

This was followed by a session with Care Opinion’s CEO James Munro, who explored the online feedback evidence base. The session was chaired by Louise Locock, professor of health services research at the University of Aberdeen.

 

 

During the session we were unable to share a video from Maria McIlgorm, Chief Nursing officer from the Department of Health in Northern Ireland, so we are delighted that we can share a link to her video here: https://vimeo.com/870308317/0c48030db9?share=copy

You can also view the presentation from this session here:

Shaun-Maher-10-years-of-Care-Opinion-in-NHSScotland.pptx

Michelle-Tennyson-Implementation-of-Online-User-Feedback-System-in-Northern-Ireland.pptx

James-Munro-Exploring-The-Online-Feedback-Evidence-Base.pptx

Part 2: - Practical Case Studies

In part 2, we heard from 2 guest speakers who gave us practical examples of how Care Opinion was being used system-wide. Tim Norwood, Data and Measurement Advisor from Healthcare Improvement Scotland, shared his experience of building a care experience dashboard and Debbie Provan, Clinical Advisor, Cancer Policy team at the Scottish Government, told us about Care Opinion in Cancer Policy. The session ended with a Q&A with our speakers.

 

Part 3: - Looking forward: How might online feedback support policy and strategy?

In part 3 we heard from 3 guest speakers who helped us explore how online feedback supports policy and strategy: Stephen Martin, team leader of the Realistic Medicine Policy Unit at the Scottish Government, told us about the work of Realistic Medicine and its synergies with Care Opinion; Sean Maher, Strategic Advisor for Person Centred Care & Improvement at the Scottish Government, talked about the journey towards a person centred system; and finally Linda Craig, Regional Lead for Patient Client Experience from the Northern Ireland Public Health Agency, talked about hearing from “seldom heard” communities.

You can view the presentations from this session here:

Stephen-Martin-Realistic-Medicine.pptx

Linda-Craig-Next-stage-of-Online-User-Feedback-Service-In-Northern-Ireland.pptx

We would like to thank all of our speakers very much for their contributions, and of course all of the attendees who made our summit such a success.

Care Opinion has frequent webinars, research chats and national conferences and you can find out more about them on our events page.