The Lincolnshire Macmillan Head and Neck Rehabilitation Team held two patient experience events to evaluate our current clinical pathways for patients that are undergoing both non-surgical and surgical management for their Head and Neck Cancer. Our service have recently undergone some significant changes in staffing after we identified deficits within the Team, specifically in the contribution of Dietetics and Speech and Language Therapy to this patient pathway. This task was undertaken to take a baseline of our current service provision.
We received great support from the Clinical Governance Team within Lincolnshire Community Health Services (LCHS) to undertake these days using an Evidenced Based Design Methodology (NHS Improvement (2009): https://improvement.nhs.uk/documents/1486/ebd_guide___toolkit.pdf). This allowed us to look at the true patient experience of our pathway at all of the significant touch points.
Key findings were:
- Need for organised AHP/CNS follow-up plans which were effectively communicated to patients so clear on expectations
- Clinics - need review in terms of organisation and access
- Lack of local support group for patients in Lincolnshire who have experienced Head and Neck Cancer
- Lack of psychological support within Lincolnshire
-Communication between organisations and GP's was variable and did contribute to anxiety around transfer of care
-Patients wanted more access to AHP's across multiple points along the pathway.
All of the above points have been incorporated into our action plan for the year and delivery has begun. We plan to repeat the event in one year to review our progress. All of our findings were disseminated back to the patients with our action plan to allow them to understand how we are going to address their concerns.
This project gave us significant information, which a survey would not have brought to light. It also captures the patient voice in a very powerful way. This has also been received with significant enthusiasm from senior members of our organisations (ULHT and LCHS) and we feel this will allow us to progress our action plan further.