Experience of Care Week, starting April 29th, is an international initiative that celebrates the work which is happening across health and social care to keep improving experiences of care for patients, families, carers and staff. Patient experience is paramount at Spectrum, and we value the feedback and constructive criticism which helps us to further improve the quality of our healthcare services. To read our fantastic patient care stories, click here.
The theme for EOCW 2024 is ‘I Am Experience of Care’ – designed to share best practice and provide opportunities for services to network and link, upscaling work and sharing lessons learned to impact patient experience.
Our interim Executive Director of Nursing and Quality Angela Star has provided her thoughts:
“Sharing the experience of care from our patients with Spectrum’s Board has been a really powerful way of highlighting the impact of the services we provide. It has been a privilege to deliver some of the stories on behalf of patients, where it hasn’t been appropriate or the patient did not want to deliver their story themselves. We have used a variety of ways of doing this, by sharing their written word, recording their voice to replay, and where possible I always prefer to use the patients’ own words they have given us, to maintain the authenticity of why we want to use patient stories.”
At Spectrum’s sexual health clinic in Barnsley (BISH), the team’s ‘You Said We Did’ board highlights the solutions actioned in response to patient feedback;
Due to fear / embarrassment, lack of privacy was a top concern. Non-verbal book-in slips were created so patients can avoid giving their details out loud. They also expressed difficulties in the booking process; patients can now arrange appointments via a user-friendly online system, with increased availability and more direct bookings.
Click below to read a blog from Jane, our Head of Service at BISH, and a piece from Liz, interim Head of Safeguarding…