Administrator to Coordinator - a Care Opinion Journey!

Being the Patient and Family Experience Team Administrator, I was the person getting the right person to sign the right piece of paper to expand our Care Opinion subscription. I was the girl who set up the meetings, the webinars, and the conference calls to discuss how we were going to get the Trust involved.

I remember my first webinar with James Munro, something really stuck in my mind – a quote from the Berwick Report, 2013.

He was right – how often do we forget to listen, and when we do remember, do we really hear? Our patients are the most important people in any hospital. It only seems right that we listen, hear, and make improvements to our services so they receive superb care, and we get great job satisfaction in return. Cue Care Opinion!

As an administrator, there is a tendency to think “I’m only admin”, I know many of my colleagues at the same level as me, have at some point or another, thought the same. We are not “only admin”, we are the facilitators, and the Care Opinion role out here at the Royal Cornwall Hospital has made me realise you can get involved at every level and you CAN make a difference.

“Everyone in the health system makes a difference to someone or something”.

So I set to work, creating, playing, helping to get Care Opinion out there! Making grab cards and Tweeting about the changes we are making!

I have recently been given the opportunity to progress into the role of Acting Patient Experience Coordinator. I had some pretty big shoes to fill as my colleague Michaela Brewer – our ‘Care Opinion Queen’ progressed elsewhere in our team. I became a subscriber on my first day, spent a lot of it exploring the website getting a feel for what patients are saying about our hospital.

Later, I did my responder training set up by Michaela and Jenny to help staff get engaged and get them writing fantastic personal responses. I did the quiz, got my certificate and I was off! I have really enjoyed reading the stories left by patients and families alike. I feel like I’m making a difference to the author by replying, even if that difference is just to make them smile.

One of the great things about Care Opinion is that it is very visual; I love the story swarms, the tag bubbles, the lily pads and the word clouds! For me, being visual is being impactful, something I try to remember when I am Tweeting! I love being about to share Care Opinion stories with staff through social media, it’s really important to stay connected, celebrate success and find the areas for improvement together.

The Care Opinion role out here has been a great success here, we are getting more and more staff listening, making us 7th in the country, a massive achievement! None of this would have been possible without our Head of Patient Experience, Frazer Underwood. I hear people say they wish they could bottle his enthusiasm and passion, we didn’t need to, we experienced it every single working day! I hope we’ve made him proud, I’m sure we have!

Looking forward to updating you on our progress soon – there is still lots to learn, lots to listen to, and lots to share!

Thanks for reading =]

Jess