Philip DylakDIRECTOR OF NURSINGTameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

NHS Trusts with the best record of responding to comments on the internet –Dr Foster Hospital Guide 2011:-

Burton Hospitals NHS Trust 100% Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre NHS Trust 100% Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust 100% Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust 100%

Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust 99% Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust 98% Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust 97% North West London Hospitals NHS Trust 96% East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust 94% Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic and District Hospital NHS Trust 94%

“Take note of what other patients say on the web about their care. It provides a valuable insight. In some cases, more than three-quarters of patients commenting say they would not recommend their hospital. In others, over 90 per cent would”.

Dr Foster “10 Things we have learned this year” (Dr Foster, 2011)

Goes back a number of years – SHA funded subscriptions to Patient Opinion for North West Trusts as part of patient engagement initiative

Tameside Hospital was having some adverse press at the time – would it improve or worsen the situation?

Soon became clear that this was up to us

We believe that people making a posting on Patient Opinion – placing their comments about a service in the public domain – deserve and expect a response from the organisation

Unless you are certain it is appropriate, don’t use phrases like - “Please contact our complaints dept. or PALS”

If people can access the website for Patient Opinion, they can access your hospital’s website and post comments to PALS or complaints for themselves

That’s the right thing to do – electronic communications don’t have to be cold and functional

It will encourage more people to post

Don’t give a bland response

If they praise staff, tell them you will bring it to staff’s attention and why staff will value that – make sure you do

If they refer to a current problem – e.g service disrupted by building works, don’t be coy – acknowledge it – it might inform other people too

If you genuinely cannot address their issue without knowing who they are, don’t use that as an excuse not to deal with it – invite them to make contact with you and give a range of contact options

If you can, say what you will do – or better still have done - with the information they have given –

“The Maternity Unit staff have identified a more suitable place for partners to wait and that area currently being redecorated. Signposts have also been ordered”

Try to respond within 2 days

This may allay anxieties for other people who may have the same issues

We keep an ongoing log – no posting is on for more than a week without a response

There are a number of Patient

Opinion tools you can use

You can design your own tools – like this one

In training sessions about communications or service improvement

To know what your service users think about your services

To offset unjustified criticism

As part of your Trust’s overall understanding of user perceptions

We piggy back messages onto our postings:-

Would you like to help the hospital to improve its services further? We are currently looking for patients and carers to become involved in a development called “Patient Stories”. We want to know more about our services from the point of view of those who received them – what was good, bad, what could be improved, what should be changed. Want to know more about what’s involved?Please contact Philip Dylak, Director of Nursing at philip.dylak@tgh.nhs.uk

Patient Opinion can help you get the most out of being involved

Make someone senior in the organisation responsible for managing it

Make your responses meaningful and relevant

Use the data you get to understand what your patients want