Engaging and involving our patients, carers and service users is a priority for our organisation and it’s great to see our work on patient and carer experience go from strength to strength. Patient, service user and carer experience is about listening to what individuals think, feel and see throughout their journey in our services and beyond. In our view, it is everyone’s business to make sure that anyone, whether their contribution is big or small, has the opportunity to get involved with our trust.
Patient, service user and carer experience is about listening to what individuals think, feel and see throughout their journey in our services and beyond.
Head of Patient and Carer Experience and Engagement
We have worked very closely with patients, service users, carers and our partners to support the creation and development of our refreshed Patient and Carer Experience strategy (2018 to 2023). This five year plan further builds on the work we have been doing since our first strategy, launched in 2016. Over the past 12 months we have seen a cultural shift in the way our patients, service users, carers, staff and partner organisations are involved and engaged with the trust. Co-production is becoming a day-to-day reality instead of consultation during or at the end of a trust innovation. Working together is helping us to actively listen and act upon the lived experiences individuals are telling us about which is making a real difference to how we improve our services and celebrate best practice.
Working together is helping us to actively listen and act upon the lived experiences individuals are telling us about which is making a real difference to how we improve our services and celebrate best practice.
Head of Patient and Carer Experience and Engagement
To promote working together and to ensure maximum involvement and engagement, we offer many opportunities for individuals to get involved in trust activities. This includes sharing their story at a trust board meeting, becoming a trust member, getting involved with research and development or being part of an interview panel for a post within our organisation. It also includes involvement with our Recovery College, which has a focus on using the strengths, knowledge and values of people with lived experience, to co-produce, support and facilitate education and training courses, promote mental wellbeing and challenge stigma. Other opportunities to get involved include volunteering, or raising money for our charity Health Stars, which promotes the development of exceptional healthcare that goes above and beyond NHS core services, through the investment in environments, resources, training and research.
To promote working together and to ensure maximum involvement and engagement, we offer many opportunities for individuals to get involved in trust activities.
Head of Patient and Carer Experience and Engagement
We want to listen to people from all parts of the community and we are doing just that by hosting Patient and Carer Experience forums in Hull & East Riding, Whitby & District and Scarborough & Ryedale. We also attend a variety of external forums and groups so that we can all understand what each other is doing and achieving.
In January 2019 our trust enrolled onto the Quality, Service Improvement and Redesign (QSIR) College programme run by NHS Improvement, which we will complete in October 2019. The programme provides NHS organisations and health systems with the ‘know-how’ to design and implement more efficient patient-centred services using tried and tested tools and approaches. Our QSIR team is made up of two patients from our Patient and Carer Experience network and four members of staff. On completion of the QSIR College programme all six candidates will roll out the QSIR practitioner programme across our organisation.
NHS Improvement has also chosen our trust to produce three short films (learning, leadership and culture), launching in summer 2019, to showcase how we have developed our approach to integrating quality improvement and patient experience. This is a great opportunity for us to be a national exemplar of patient experience and share our journey with fellow provider trusts across the country.
Over the past year the patient experience team has seen a considerable growth in staff joining our staff champions of patient experience forum. This is where staff from clinical and corporate services meet to share best practice and learning relating to patient and carer experience.
Head of Patient and Carer Experience and Engagement
Over the past year the patient experience team has seen a considerable growth in staff joining our staff champions of patient experience forum. This is where staff from clinical and corporate services meet to share best practice and learning relating to patient and carer experience. In the forum, we have just implemented the staff champion of patient experience recognition scheme which encourages patients, service users and carers to talk to our champions about their experiences of our services. We have ensured that they can recognise these champions through their purple lanyards.
Clinicians can play a pivotal role in providing care to bereaved individuals, and another initiative we have implemented in our physical health services is the bereavement survey. The bereavement survey package includes a bereavement card (designed by our Recovery College students) and a bereavement booklet (bespoke to the service) detailing help and support available in the local area. The feedback we get helps ensure that the information provided in the booklet is very useful and the bereavement cards are perceived as a lovely gesture.
We have had a great year working together in partnership with our patients, service users, carers, staff and partner organisations to help patient and carer experience to become an integral part of our culture and everyday thinking.
Mandy will be speaking at our Quality Conference 2019 on 4 June in London as part of a panel on co-producing better care. It will look at how to build productive relationships with the public in order to empower patients and service users and improve quality. Register your free place (members only) for the conference.
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