The story so far!

There has always been an innate passion for patient and carer voices within Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust. We love to listen to stories; our clinical teams are enthused by it. To provide the right platforms to enable an equitable solution and feedback choice .

The very concept of care opinion has created a buzz within Southern Health. More teams are getting interested and even further afield, colleagues in Hampshire Hospitals Foundation Trust are already implementing care opinion within their virtual wards.

During December 2021 Mid and North Hampshire undertook a project called ‘mind the gap’ wherein patient stories were recorded, analysed and used to create some specifically tailored handouts for carers. It was good to know where we could improve, what carers and patients alike felt about us. These patient voices were the spark that would eventually ignite the cultural powder keg that is care opinion.

However, this was just a temporary project. We knew we could do more. Therefore, we decided to pilot Care Opinion with two teams, Urgent community response Mid and North Hampshire. Both teams were overjoyed with the opportunity to use the platform. Work started fast, we were seeing a volume of patient and carer feedback responses that was previously unheard of in our patient cohort. Slowly but surely, we were giving those that seldom speak out a voice

This initial pilot was now underway and gaining traction, other divisions were keen to get involved and it was clear an inpatient model was to be created. This wasn’t as complicated as it sounds, as we have used an incredibly flexible approach to the model within our community services. It was clear that WhatsApp groups and checking in with the team worked in community, it was now time to see how we could bend the model

It was decided that Alton Community hospital was a good place to start. Another opportunity to test how flexible the care opinion model is. The teams in Alton were incredibly quick to catch on. Calling it the ‘trip advisor’ of hospital care. They have been using it actively to reinforce the need for their infusion’s clinic, an unexpected but welcomed mission.

In all 5 of the teams, we are using care opinion with, there have been clear subtle shifts in the way they interact with carers and patients. Staff are much more open with patients, happy to talk to them about their experience, this took a short time to change and some of the feedback collected had team members overjoyed with the feedback from carers and patients. This has only driven them to talk to patients and carers much more openly, in the hopes they can learn and improve.

By using social media and care opinion, UCR Mid and North Hampshire have curtailed a strong online following, it’s clear that the public has an appetite for feedback as well as our clinicians. You wouldn’t expect 200 people to come onto your page just to read a single sentence, but it happens. It’s great to see our patient and carer voices on the main stage.

I would like to see all of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust adopt care opinion on a divisional level. It starts at home, in North and Mid Hampshire but there’s already rumblings from other divisions and trusts. The very concept of care opinion is so appealing to most, so I know it won’t be an uphill battle. It will be a positive change. I like to think whoever gets involved with collecting patient and carer stories becomes an important part of a compassionate system that works to prevent large risks and offer equitable feedback solutions.