Following the publication of our national inpatient survey results, we knew we had a huge issues with patients not knowing how to raise concerns. Currently all of the wards do display PALS posters and leaflets but these are located on the wall at the entrances to the wards and patients in bed would usually see them.
Following an idea on the FAB website, I decided to adopt and tweak the "I don't want to complain but......" concept.
I designed an A5 poster which was then printed as a waterproof gloss laminated vinyl sticker.
This would be placed on every bed side locker across our 3 hospital sites. This sticker would them be highly visible to everyone at the bedside. It says to speak to one of the nursing in the first instance and also contact details for PALS and how to raise a formal complaint.
The stickers are being rolled out and are currently on a ward at Grantham and also all oncology wards across the trust.
With so many beds across 3 sites, our volunteers will be visiting the remaining wards to implement the stickers on each bedside lockers.
We hope that concerns and worries will be resolved quickly on the ward without the need to raise a concern so we'd see a reduction in the number of PALS concerns received from our wards.
The full success of the project will be reflected in the results of our next national inpatient survey.