Patient Opinion - the movie!

We like to share the good practice from subscribers who go above and beyond with their use of Patient Opinion, and as a result we have identified a number of ‘exemplar’ organisations who work closely with us.

Keen to discover how they maximise their use of online feedback and the impact of using Patient Opinion, we’ve teamed up with a group of film production students at Sheffield Hallam University to produce a series of ‘exemplar’ videos.

It’s been a busy January with visits to Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust and Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust. We are also really excited to be visiting Locala Community Partnerships later this month.

I’ve visited the sites on location, accompanied by students Jake, Josh and Chris. It has been extremely insightful and rewarding. I’ve really enjoyed meeting and talking with the members of staff who are heavily involved in making Patient Opinion such a valued part of how the organisations run.

Richard Parker, managing director at Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield, discussed the difference between formal complaints and using online feedback. He said: “The benefit with Patient Opinion is that we get feedback almost real-time, and we are able to do something about it. I would like to think that we get more feedback than through a formal complaints route, as I think it’s a much more powerful tool in that respect.”

Together, we’ve filmed and interviewed staff who have provided thoughtful insights into how they use PO in their varying roles. 

At Lincoln County Hospital (part of United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust) I spoke with Sharon Kidd. She discussed the power of being able to respond directly to stories. She said: “We had a really bad story posted online, and we responded to it immediately asking for the author to contact us. The next morning the son rang me, I took the details and said that we would get somebody to speak to him.

“Within 4 hours a team meeting had been held with the family. We posted back on to say thank you for contacting us. He then sent the most beautiful thank you response, thanking the doctors, nurses and matrons for the help.”

While visiting a Sure Start centre in Bingham, we spoke to Sue Dyke from Nottinghamshire Healthcare trust, who told us about the challenge of spreading awareness of PO through the trust. She said: “It was quite time intensive but paid off, because now we've got teams like Sure Start Children's Centres and community dental who have identified their own Patient Opinion administrators, and they're running with it. 

“And that gives them a sense of their own autonomy and that's what we want to replicate in all of the services. So the success speaks for itself in terms of the numbers of the stories we're getting.”

I’d like to thank everyone involved from each of the trusts, as well as the students who are doing a magnificent job.

Keep an eye out over coming weeks as we’ll be sharing the videos online through Facebook and Twitter. We hope you can learn from what others have to say, and feel free to share with your colleagues if you feel inspired!