CEO's blog: Why we ALL need to listen
Sometimes the changes may appear small, but the impact on the lives of local residents can be huge.Improvements to mental health service provision, changes to vaccination policies, better management of medical administration records and GP access are all areas where your feedback has been used by commissioners and service providers over the last few years, to make care and treatment better in Milton Keynes.
And yet, recent findings by the Kings Fund warn that overall, the proportion of patients feeling involved in decisions about their care or treatment has been falling in recent years.
Sadly, we're never too far from evidence of this on the national stage. We frequently see families who've been ignored by the medical profession, with tragic consequences. The introduction of Martha's Rule is testament to this, as is the Ockendon Report into maternity care failings.
When it comes to patient experience, we ALL need to be listening. When our team see positive changes to care in MK, what's always evident is a commitment by health and care professionals to seek out, and then act on patient feedback.
Still, all too often the unsatisfactory, or upsetting experiences you share are dismissed, or balanced off against more positive experiences. To put positive and negative experiences in the context of one of those unimaginable national scandals of poor care, should hundreds of positive maternity experiences outweigh the smaller number of cases where there are tragic consequences to peoples' health, and lives?
Concerns may have manifested as negative feedback about numbers of staff, poor communications, a lack of professional manner perhaps. Significant care failures are also likely to have emerged at an early stage through patient feedback. That is why your local Healthwatch exists: to ensure patient feedback is invited, acted on early and is an integral part of designing and evaluating services.
Absolutely, the pressures on our health and care services are overwhelming right now, especially as we again head into winter: workforce gaps, financial challenges, and industrial action are impacting on the health and care system’s ability to act on patient feedback. But not listening to the experts - the patients themselves - is not only a missed opportunity to design the most effective and cost efficient services, but in rare, tragic cases can lead to the worst of outcomes.
By contrast, I've yet to hear of an NHS commissioner or hospital consultant who regrets listening to what a patient told them about their experience of care and/or treatment.
We're always here, always listening, and always challenging our local services to do the same. We act as an independent, 'critical friend' to the Bedfordshire, Luton & Milton Keynes ICB, which means telling them what we're hearing about your experiences and then asking, what can be done to change things?
If you see opportunities to share your feedback, or get involved in shaping local services, do take up that valuable chance.
We are listening.
Have you had a recent experience at your GP practice, hospital, or any other health service?
