Hello from NHS Lanarkshire

Hello everyone,

NHS Lanarkshire has been listening to your stories and responding with Patient Opinion since January 2014 and it’s my job to make sure your experience is shared and considered by the right members of staff.

Your feedback has allowed us to reflect on our performance and learn. We are able to ask ourselves:

How can we improve, what could we do better, what are we doing well?

The experiences you have shared with us have been, compelling, disappointing, embarrassing, sad, funny and heartfelt; they have had a profound effect on staff and have also been a great motivator when you’ve told us we got it right.

Your stories are shared with all staff groups involved in your experience, whether that is in a hospital or a community based service. This could be at a safety brief, during professional training, or at a departmental or Board meeting.

NHS Lanarkshire gathers patient experience and invites unsolicited feedback through a variety of methods in addition to Patient Opinion. The recent “We are listening” advertising campaign saw local buses and street signs advising the public how to provide feedback about their healthcare experiences.

Over the coming months I will be inviting colleagues to provide a brief update via the Patient Opinion Blog on activities in their area such as changes, or improvements as a direct result of feedback from patients and families that access our services; as well as any upcoming developments.

We will continue to listen, reflect and learn from your experiences, but we can only do that if you help us. If you have had a healthcare experience that was good, bad, or indifferent and you feel able to share it via Patient Opinion, please do. Alternatively visit the “Your Feedback” section of the NHS Lanarkshire website to see the other ways you can get in touch www.nhslanarkshire.org.uk

Kind regards