Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh NHS Foundation Trust

For Our Patients

• Patient Relations
• Careline
• Reschedule or Cancel an Appointment
• Text Message Reminder Opt-Out
• Complaints and Concerns
• Patient Opinion Feedback
• Inpatients guide
• Outpatients guide
• Visitors
• The Who I Am Passport
• Carer Support During Hospital Stay
• Listen With BrowseAloud
• Patient Information Leaflets

Patient Opinion

Patient Opinion is a different way for the Trust to get feedback from patients, visitors, relatives and carers.  It was founded in 2005 and is a national independent feedback platform for health services. It is non-profit making and is about sharing experiences and opinions regarding health services within the UK.

The House of Commons Health Committee’s report on NHS complaints was published recently and the Committee made clear that it saw “great value in providers constantly viewing the comments left about them on websites such as Patient Opinion”.  The Committee went on to recommend “the use of tools that allow patients to give feedback anonymously and that can demonstrate that changes have been made to service provision based on feedback received”.

Patient Opinion is a conversation between the patients, carers and the professionals of the health service bodies.  Everyone requires healthcare at various points in their lives and this is the ideal way to share stories and experiences.

On the site anyone can:

• See what other patients are saying about the healthcare that each Trust is providing
• Share their story so that others can learn from their experience
• See how health services have responded to comments from others

Was it good – if so then this can be shared and you can also thank the people who were responsible.  If it wasn’t the best, then could improvements be made and are there any suggestions as to how this could be done.

Currently approximately 150 organisations are subscribers to Patient Opinion and our healthcare professionals can listen and respond to the experiences of our patients using this platform.

Once someone has contacted Patient Opinion with their comments, they will check that this is not obscene, defamatory or offensive and, if it is, Patient Opinion reserve the right not to publish it or to edit it.  If the comments are very critical of a hospital then Patient Opinion may email the person to check that it has been sent in good faith.  If is confirmed that it has, then it will be published and we can respond to this.  If the person has not used an email address or does not get back to Patient Opinion then they may not be able to publish any very critical postings.

All published opinions go to the Care Quality Commission which is the national regulator for the NHS in England.  All postings are also republished on NHS Choices.

If you have experienced health care recently, either as a patient yourself or as a carer or friend of someone else, you can tell Patient Opinion how it was. They will then pass your comments to us for us to respond and to make changes if necessary.

Our staff are being encouraged to let patients, visitors and carers alike know that they can share their story using Patient Opinion as this gives us the opportunity to learn what people think of the services that we provide and to celebrate what we are doing well.  If there are things that we can improve on then this is a good way to find out what people think and also to look at any suggestions that they may make.

There will be a stand at Thomas Linacre Centre from 9.30 am to 4.30 pm on Tuesday 23 August 2011 with information regarding Patient Opinion.  The Patient Relations / PALS team would love you to come along to see them and would be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Alternatively, you can ring them on 0845 113 0012 and share your story with one of the the team over the phone in confidence.