How staff have been supporting patients to use Patient Opinion

I was disappointed on Tuesday to see the Newsnight coverage of the work we have been doing within Nottinghamshire Healthcare to engage with our patients.

In the feature, the reporter states that 'We don't know for certain why these reviews are being posted from NHS computers'. I would like to go some way to respond to that, at least within the context of the patients that use our podiatry services.

As part of a Patient Feedback challenge initiative within our organisation, myself and my front line colleagues  wanted to gather meaningful feedback. To really gain insight from our patients about their story, their experience, and what, if anything we could do to improve our service.

We felt Patient Opinion was a fantastic way to gather this feedback. Patients would have the chance, in their own words, to tell us whatever they wanted. And the anonymity is an important part of that. With anonymity, patients feel free to truly express their feelings, their experience, and not sugar-coat it, or try to give us the response they think we want.

So we put up Patient Opinion literature in our waiting rooms. When patients gave comments during their treatment, we told them about the website. And what happened? Very little. Most patients told us they didn't have a computer, or if they did they had problems using it. For our patient group of mainly elderly, vulnerable people, directing people to a website did not work.

We thought about how we could make this work for our patients. We perhaps needed to make it more simple. So we made posters, in large print, with colourful pictures, and provided Patient Opinion feedback forms, pens and a comments box in the waiting room, and lo and behold, the feedback came pouring in. 

We typed these comments up and posted them on to Patient Opinion, using our NHS computers, making sure we stated that we were staff members. Our managers then replied to this feedback, and I printed out all the posts and replies and displayed them in our waiting room, for patients to see when they returned. We made changes to our services based on the Patient Opinion feedback. Things have improved directly due to what our patients have told us, anonymously, and in a way that worked best for them.

And it's as simple as that. Giving vulnerable patients a voice, trying to understand their experience of our service, and making things better for them, has been our motivation for using Patient Opinion in the way that we have. We are proud of the work we have done, of the changes we have made, of the positive effect this initiative has had on our patients, our staff, and our service; this has been our only agenda. 

If the Newsnight team had come to see us, to talk to our patients, to see how we use Patient Opinion, to see the original Patient Opinion comments forms, completed by our patients in their own words and then transcribed exactly as written, on to the website, then maybe it would help them to understand why it is necessary for our staff to help support our patients to get their voice heard.