NHS Tayside Realistic Medicine Conference December 2023

On Friday 1st of December, I had the absolute pleasure of travelling to the Regional Performance Centre in Dundee to attend a conference entitled Realistic Medicine 2023 - Creating Value for a Sustainable Future. It was a beautiful, sunny day and a wondeful chance to see each other in person.

I was joined by Victoria Sullivan (Lead for Care Opinion and Project Manager for Elective Medicine in NHS Tayside) and Carol-Anne Cousins (PA and Project Officer, NHS Tayside), and together, we held a Care Opinion stall, which was a wonderful opportunity to engage with attendees and let them know more about online feedback for health and care services in NHS Tayside. I was pleasantly surprised to find that most people in attendance were already aware of Care Opinion, with many people receiving feedback for their services via the platform. I also met people who have shared their own stories and received responses from the teams mentioned. There was a general feeling of encouragement and support for the use of Care Opinion in NHS Tayside, with people believing in what we do as an organisation and advocating for the views of people to be shared and listened to.

Care Opinion has now reached a point in the area where online feedback and the use of the platform is embedded within the culture of heath and care services. It was a pleasure to see Sally Wilson (Service Manager - Integration, Improvement and Development Service, Angus Health and Social Care Partnership) who we work closely with in the Angus area of Tayside. Her team, as part of 'Angus Alive', delivered a very inspiring workshop about their work within  Prevention and Proactive Care Group. It was wonderful to hear about the support given to people, to help them become more healthy and well by connecting to nature through information and guidance.

Victoria and I delivered a presentation entitled 'Time to Listen', looking at how Care Opinion values fit nicely with the pillars of Realistic Medicine.

We focused on the importance of feedback from patents, which was a topic discussed throughout the day in different sessions. We also looked at the stories told on Care Opinion, and how people can use reporting functions and active listening to reflect on feedback in relation to Realistic Medicine principles. You can see the presentation slides here:https://www.careopinion.org.uk/resources/Care Opinion Time to Listen.pdf

I enjoyed all of the thought-provoking presentations and workshops delivered during the event. Dr Pavan Raju delivered a session about sustainability in healthcare, which is something we all know to be of great importance. 

It was fascinating to hear the figures, and also how observing and making changes can have a positive impact. In the image above, you can see the number of surgical masks used in 2019 and 2020. We had a great discussion about the potential to use more re-usable PPE and other resources within health care, and whether the procedures are best for the environment, as well as health for patients in general.

We also learned more about the Person-Centred Charter, and how this influences care in Tayside. Keeping people at the centre or 'heart' is what Care Opinion is all about so we fully support this and it's development moving forward.

We all had a fantastic day, met some wonderful people and hope to attend similar events in the future. Thank you to the organisers and everyone involved in the event for having us along!

You can read more about Realistic Medicine and Care Opinion in Scotland in our most recent annual review, with a special piece written by the wonderful Dr Catherine Labinjoh, National Clinical Lead for Realistic Medicine, who delivered a great session on reducing harm at the event, here: Annual Review of stories told on Care Opinion about NHS Scotland services in 2022-23 | Care Opinion