Why do NI patients post on Care Opinion?

Debbie McGrory has recently completed research on user satisfaction and preferences of authors in Northern Ireland posting on Care Opinion, as part of her MSc in Communication and Public Relations at Ulster University.

In this blog Debbie shares the key findings of her research.

My research explored why NI adults posted online patient feedback on the Care Opinion website. In Summer 2022, I developed an online survey where questions focussed on how many times participants posted on Care Opinion, reasons why they posted and how satisfied they were with their post response and with the Care Opinion platform. My main findings are outlined below:

• 86% posted to thank HSCNI staff for doing a good job and for providing good quality care to them or someone they knew
• 65% posted to share their experience with others
• 49% said they posted to improve patient care
• 67% said a response was received by the right department and acknowledged

My research suggested that there was some uncertainty about whether feedback was fully taken on board, when received by staff. Some authors commented that because they had not received a response, they felt their feedback may not have reached the right department and those who received a response were unsure if improvements to care had been made to a service or organisation.

Participants mainly engaged with Care Opinion NI to thank staff, so it is vital to engage staff and provide training and development to staff on patient feedback such as how to respond to feedback, both positive and negative. This could help boost staff morale, help make staff less anxious when responding to feedback and could be reassuring to staff that they are doing a great job.

The majority of participants (75%) felt the feedback they provided was valuable to HSCNI and 87% would recommend posting on this platform. It was thought Care Opinion was a suitable platform to post positive feedback but not to post about complaints or negative feedback . 78% said they would not use Care Opinion to complain.

To conclude, online patient feedback on Care Opinion NI was valued, but can still  play a much larger role across all of HSCNI. The key to realising the value of online patient feedback is down to embedding and implementing feedback across the system. Care Opinion continues to support health and social care trusts across NI in the delivery of local mechanisms to embed feedback and work continues to engage staff and patients to embrace this relatively new platform to NI.

Author’s Note: My research was a Science Shop project, Ulster University, in collaboration with Care Opinion, under the supervision of Dr Anne Moorhead.

For more information on the Science Shop visit: https://www.ulster.ac.uk/scienceshop