Using Social Media To Share Patient Opinion With Staff

We have been working with Patient Opinion for four years, but recently we have been trialling new ways of sharing Patient Opinion with our staff. The NHS isn’t always brilliant at sharing great feedback with frontline staff. It’s easy to get bogged down in the negative feedback. But it’s so important to boost staff morale and give them the amazing feedback they deserve.

Even though lots of our staff receive alerts from PO about stories relevant to their service, with all the best will, we simply can’t send the stories to everyone. Emails often don’t work because there are regular staff changes, and clinical staff often don’t get to see a PC on shift, never mind read through emails. So there’s no guarantee feedback will be seen by the people involved in the care, especially if the patient pathway has been so wide. This is why sharing feedback on social media, Facebook in particular, works so well, because it’s quick, easily accessible and can be done at home or in breaks.

Twitter & Patient Opinion

PO recently tweeted this blog  from the CEO of SASH about the benefits of receiving email alerts to all stories. So, I tweeted our CEO, Jan Sobieraj to ask if he wants all alerts too. Of course, Jan was really keen, and loves the ability to be kept in the loop.  Jan now wants to be mentioned every time I tweet a PO story, not simply so that he can favourite it or retweet it, but because he wants to see it and respond to it with his views. This is such a bonus; I think it’s powerful for the public to see that the CEO is actively reading their feedback.

Sharing stories with staff through Facebook

We have a closed Facebook group created specifically for ULHT nurses. There’s nearly 2,100 members of staff in the group from a total of 7,500 staff.  I realised it would be a perfect way to share the great stories on Patient Opinion, to spread some good news and to boost staff morale. This worked brilliantly, with staff commenting, liking and sharing the feedback. This means feedback reaches staff who might not otherwise usually get to see it.

Unlike by email, on Facebook, colleagues will comment and tag each other in stories that are relevant to each other, or congratulate their team. It’s really rewarding to see and it’s a much more suitable way to share the great feedback.

Another bonus of sharing stories this way is the massive boost it gives to the number of staff reading stories. Most stories will be read around 20 to 60 times, but when I share one in the Facebook group, hundreds and sometimes thousands of people read it.

The more that people read about great feedback, the better the staff morale and drive to continue with such excellent care. It’s a team effort and it’s great to see staff morale flourish.