WIREDGOV

Area for action

In 2012, a report by the Partnership on dignity in care highlighted the importance of staff listening and responding to patient feedback. This point was echoed in the Francis report and underlined as an area for action.

Yet evidence indicates the NHS still has a long way to go to improve this aspect of patient care. Often older patients are not asked for feedback about the care they received during their stay in hospital. They can also be reluctant to give honest feedback and sometimes feel they are not taken seriously when they do.

That's why the partnership is launching a two-year project to work with patients and nurses to help address this issue.

Sharing innovative work

We know that our members are doing some innovative and exciting work in this area and we are looking for two trusts to share their work and become pilots sites to test the project's findings.

What will the project do?

The project will evaluate and improve known methods and systems for engaging and motivating nurses to consistently listen and learn from older patients to improve patient experience.

It aims to enable nurses and older people to break down the cultural, practical and emotional barriers to listening and learning from feedback.

Nurses will be supported to better use feedback as a positive part of person-centred care.

Develop a good practice model

A scalable good practice model will be developed, as a result of this evaluation, to disseminate our learning widely to other hospitals and care settings. The model will be tested in two hospital pilot sites and tools and resources will be developed to be used across the country.

This project is a joint partnership between the three organisations that set up the Commission on Dignity in Care: Age UK, the NHS Confederation and the Local Government Association (LGA) and is funded by The Burdett Trust for Nursing.

Get involved

To be involved in the project, your trust will need to meet our project criteria. If you do and want to find out more information, please contact Rachel.wilkinson@ageuk.org.uk  

Project criteria and what you'll need to take part:

• a general acute trust
• written support for the project from trust directors
• written commitment from ward manager/leader to support and participate in the project
• approval from research and development departments and support from audit departments with service evaluation
• patients on wards need to be majority older people i.e. older people’s ward, acute
• hospitals need to ideally be in different regions, and preferably a rural and urban hospital
• have a track record in patient innovations that includes approaches to patient/service user feedback.
• a band 5 member of staff to coordinate the project three days per week resource will be given to provide backfill
• have a track record of engagement with volunteers and policies in place to support them
• have a track record of engagement and working with third sector organisations and other local stakeholders
• prepared to share results and learning nationally and actively participating in dissemination
• able to commit to the project for two years, starting in the new year.

For general information about the work of the Partnership on dignity in care, please contact david.thomas@nhsconfed.org