Who needs Patient Opinion?

Lots of organisations that we work with welcome Patient Opinion. But some see web-based feedback more as a trial than an opportunity.  Who needs web-based feedback when you've already got surveys, CQUINS, hand helds and your own internal system of PALS and complaints? The very things that appeal to patients and the public about Patient Opinion – that it is easy to use, free,  visible to everyone,  independent, impossible to control, and full of  anecdotes – are exactly the things that these trusts and managers fear.

Understandable but the problem with looking at the world (and Patient Opinion) in this way is that it assumes that because NHS organisations have been able to control feedback in the past they will still be able to do it in a world that is being re-shaped by forces much wider than the NHS, or government policy. We are used to running an NHS in which patients interact on our terms, use our complaint procedures, fill out our questionnaires – when now, out there on the web,  everyone  is already saying exactly what they think on their own terms.

Losing control of these internal procedures feels uncomfortable but actually represents a great opportunity. As a trust it means that something that was scarce and expensive – patient feedback – has suddenly become cheap and plentiful. Yes, that means news ways of working. Yes, it means that we have to respond in public rather than use complaints procedures that are bureaucratic, private and easier to control. But it also means it is now really easy  to involve every single team in the trust in hearing what patients are saying, reflecting on what it mean for good practice, and entering into a public conversations about what they are going to do to improve things.  And that has to be a change for the better.