Celebrating 5 years of listening and responding

The 3rd August 2025 marks a huge step regionally with Northern Ireland as its 5 years of Care Opinion within Health and Social Care Trust.

What have we achieved in the last five years in the South Eastern Trust?

3102 stories shared about South Eastern HSC Trust services by service users, families and carers 3926 responses made by staff 88% of the stories have been of a positive nature (rated criticality 0-1) 538 members of staff subscribed, with 342 of our members trained as responders 471,432 times these stories have been read by members of the public

Care Opinion is proving to be a valuable asset within our user experience and involvement toolkit. We have worked actively to spread the message of Care Opinion and to embed it across many areas of the Trust, increasing the visibility with a diverse range of posters, display boards and templates at service information points.  

We are focusing on equipping our staff with the confidence and competence to use Care opinion to actively listen and respond to the voices of our service users, families and carers. Our team are delivering training through our Learning Management System to help drive forward good practice in responding and we have developed our own “Good Practice Guides to Responding” to aid staff through their responding journey. This is to maintain and build upon our current level of responsiveness - 2,824 (91%) stories responded to within 7 days.

What has Care Opinion told us?

The below tag bubble visualisation summarises the key themes over the past 5 years

All health and social care Trusts in Northern Ireland will be collectively celebrating 5 years of Care Opinion the week commencing 15th September 2025.

Our Involvement & Experience Team will be hosting information stands across our 3 main hospital sites to engage with service users, families and carers, and also to chat with our Trust staff! Look out for us…

• Monday 15th September: Ulster Hospital – Café Connect from 11:00-13:00
• Wednesday 17th September: Downe Hospital – Main entrance from 10:00-12:00
• Friday 19th September: Lagan Valley Hospital – Main entrance from 10:00-12:00

I wish to take the time to thank the Care Opinion team (Sarah, Liz, Tracy and co.) for their outstanding guidance and support throughout the journey, our Public Health Agency partners (Linda Craig, Thelma Swann and David Todd) for being the advocates of the service providing regional leadership to pave the way and lastly, but by no means least, to our very own trust Care Opinion leads (Emma Spencer and Nial Scott) whose commitment, tenacity and passion to user experience and involvement have been integral over the past 5 years.

Wishing you all well