Patient involvement: moving beyond a tick box exercise

We are busy introducing an innovative way in which we can involve our patients so that it is no longer seen as ‘ticking a box’.

You’re at work and someone reminds you about the dreaded equality and diversity assessment or form you need to complete, just feels like another tick box exercise that appears to have little or no value (although this isn’t the case).

Well in our field of communications and engagement, and in particular the latter, we sometimes feel that colleagues feel the same when we utter the words patient involvement. Now there’s nothing wrong with patient surveys, questionnaires and focus groups in fact they’re vital to the work we do. No industry would be able to operate without market insight and patient involvement is just that for the NHS.

That is why we feel we need to look at actively involving patients but also looking at how we can work in partnership with and use patient/people/consumer power to truly shape services (which is called product development and testing in the commercial world). We are lucky to have patients, carers, clinicians and other stakeholders who are willing to give up some of their valuable time to feedback their thoughts on current services or proposed future services. But how can we harness some of this collective will from those who feel they could offer more to the NHS and for free?!

We’re not saying we have the answer however we weren’t going to sit still and wait for someone to advise us of an alternative. That’s why we have developed a programme called patient leaders. Or we are calling it patient leaders for now however feedback has already suggested that a small number of patients themselves don’t feel this is the right title. They’ve said leaders suggests something they’re not maybe patient representatives would be better? For the purpose of this piece we will call it the patient leader programme but like any other product our customers will help us define the name (brand).

Read the rest of the blog here: http://www.leedswestccg.nhs.uk/news/patient-involvement-moving-beyond-a-tick-box-exercise/

Chris Bridle and Shak Rafiq Communications and engagement leads, NHS Leeds West Clinical Commissioning Group
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