Using Care Opinion in CGL Cambridgeshire

I am Paul Pescud and I am the Service Manager for CGL in Cambridgeshire. I’ve been a big supporter of Service User involvement for many years now and have been involved in many projects which this is the focus. Gaining feedback should be part of any service working with people. So we decided to move away from the standard questionnaire approach and ask people what they thought in their own words. Therefore, Care Opinion fits the bill perfectly!

We have lots going on in our service. Lots of people attending either virtually or face to face. So we worked with the staff team to help them understand the importance and at the end of groups or 1:1 sessions we often point people in the direction of Care Opinion. We have some computers in our services so people can add their story while they are waiting or when they have finished their session. Click here to read some of the stories submitted by people who have used our service.

I currently am the main responder for CGL Cambridgeshire and it feels great to connect with service users. I get quite overwhelmed with the kind words people say about the service but I also feel so proud about the impact our staff have on people’s lives. It really is amazing.

Generally the response from the our service users has been good. Naturally, lots of people speak to their worker if they have any issues and they get resolved locally which may be why many of our comments and stories have been very positive. It’s also great that Care Opinion is accessible and people can share their stories in a variety of ways.

One of the greatest benefits has been to the staff. After I have posted the response and it has been published on the site, I then forward on to the staff team. It really does boost morale in the team because the work is hard, no doubt about that. It’s great that individuals get highlighted to really demonstrate that relationships and connections are so important. The staff team feel great when good stories come in, reading in the service users own words how they have impacted their life is very powerful. We use the stories to inform commissioners of the work we are doing which changes the narrative away from stats data and performance.

The pandemic has been tough for so many people for so many reasons. We remained open throughout the whole period but our treatment offer changed. We moved into telephone support and the delivery of online groups. This benefitted so many people who were self-isolating, shielding or just disconnected due to where they lived. We won’t be going back to exactly how it was before, but we will have a good blend of online support and face to face interventions. Care Opinion has allowed us to evaluate the changes we have made over the last year to see what is working well and what could be better.

Seeing the impact our staff has on service users is so inspiring. Reading phrases like:

you have turned my life around 

without you I don’t know where I would be...

are not uncommon. I do say clearly that we only have a small part to play and it’s the service users themselves that do the hard work but it is really nice to think that service users feel that way about us.

I have not seen this type of feedback using other mechanisms. Hopefully this will inspire more CGL services to implement Care Opinion and make the most out of the subscription.