Category

Public Involvement

17.08.08 | Colin Adamson

Patient Feedback - the Canadian way Complaint Handling, Public Involvement, Surveys | (0)
The Lakeridge Health hospital at Oshawa, Ontario sends out a questionnaire and covering letter to those who have been discharged after a stay in hospital. For UK users of similar questionnaires, there will be few surprises both in the ground covered and the survey approach especially when you see that the company running the exercise is NRC Picker Canada. What impressed me the most was the quality of the covering letter which addresses questions that many managers prefer to avoid or gloss over when doing these sorts of surveys. For example, the letter confronts head on one of the main reasons why people do not respond. They are scared that if they say bad things about their stay in hospital, bad things will happen when they are back in. "Please feel free to express your opinions frankly and be assured that your future care at the hospital will not be negatively ...
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12.08.08 | Colin Adamson

Canada Post Local Involvement Network, Public Involvement | (0)
The current Canadian obsessions are the price of gas for their cars - now going down with every change monitored cent by cent - and detached human parts. The running (floating) story is feet being washed up on various shores thanks to the buoyancy of trainers but this has been pushed aside in the national media by the horrifying reports on the dangers of decapitation by fellow travellers on the bus. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="In Canada, by C.Adamson"][/caption] There was an immediate rush of stories about the civic duty of the fellow passengers on the bus. Should they have intervened? Or was their primary duty to themselves and to get out of there? I have no doubt as to what my reaction would have been. I have not been on a Greyhound bus since the time in the 60's when the company offered what was surely the best travel bargain ever ...
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09.07.08 | Colin Adamson

A New Song for the NHS - turn me loose and set me free! NHS, Public Involvement, Uncategorized | (1)
"Cause More Trouble" That was one piece of advice from David Nicolson, Chief Executive of the NHS speaking at a Department of Health conference 8th July to those representing the patient interest. The venue was the cathedral-like space of the Lawrence Hall in the Royal Horticultural Halls before an audience of specialists and enthusiasts working in the area of people participation, involvement, engagement - the vocabulary changed as fast and as frequently as the sky over Wimbledon. Many of them had gathered before in halls to be assured that the future of patient participation was now safe and on a good road only to be disappointed by the reality down the line. Does the NHS this time have a new story and a new song that will not just promise a new dawn but deliver it? NHS - the New Story and why not? - a Song as well The speakers ...
Continue reading: A New Song for the NHS - turn me loose and set me free!
01.07.08 | Colin Adamson

July Newsletter: New Look, Same Passions Complaint Handling, Public Involvement, Schools, Surveys | (1)
Our passions remains the same but we have clothed our mix of news and views in new clothes knitted together with Wordpress which Dan Wardle of Surveylab our adviser in these matters assures us will bring the blog into the world of Web 2.0. On www.publicinvolvement.org.uk recently... A MP has asked why we are all so miserable? Are we becoming a nation of miserabilists never happier than when whingeing? We take a look at the latest Annual Report from the Financial Services Ombudsman for some facts and figures on the nation's complaint behaviour in the markets he covers. The principle of being fair to consumers is all the rage in regulatory circles and we look at the new laws banning unfair practices backed by new OFT research that tells us that 'consumer detriment' costs us as consumers over £6billion pounds a year. We join up our learning on complaints with our thinking ...
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02.06.08 | Colin Adamson

100 already - a quick century for the Wandsworth LINk Clients, Local Involvement Network, Public Involvement | (0)
Friday (30th May) saw our 100th member registration - swift work considering the site only opened for business on 8th May and our mailing went out on Tuesday 13th May. We do not expect a telegram from our monarch but it is good to know that the citizens of Wandsworth are responding so well to the drive for LINk members. Thank you for signing up and for giving us feedback on the form and the process of registration which we have considered and responded to. Check out the Wandsworth LINk website and the registration form at www.wandsworthlink.org.uk. The LINks Host will of course be continuing the recruitment campaign to attract as wide and as numerous a membership as possible. There is a public meeting planned for the evening of 17th June at Balham library - more details on the website - where there will be an election for the Interim Executive. ...
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09.05.08 | Colin Adamson

Wandsworth’s Local Involvment Network launches today Clients, Local Involvement Network, Public Involvement | (0)
Since our announcement last month, M-A-C has been busy working with the Wandsworth Care Alliance to launch Wandsworth LINk. The website www.wandsworthlink.org.uk went 'live' this morning.
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22.04.08 | Colin Adamson

Section 242 and the Disability Equality Duty - Making a Happy Marriage Disability, NHS, Public Involvement | (0)
We do not get many comments on the blog so we were delighted when Michelle Valentine, the author of the piece that follows, was sufficiently interested by an entry that Andrew Craig wrote in March on complying with Section 242 to note in our comment box "This new duty could be quite a powerful lever for disabled people, and it will be interesting to see how this duty will be implemented alongside the duties imposed by the DDA 2005 to involve disabled people. I would welcome a discussion about this." This was rather unwise of Michelle because of course we immediately invited her to kick off such a discussion. Her article follows. Michelle has her own consultancy Disability Forward Ltd and we know her from her work with the BSI Consumer and Public Interest Network. You can reach her at michelle@disabilityfwd.co.uk Section 242 is shorthand for the general legal duty on the ...
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14.03.08 | Andrew Craig

Andrew Craig Gets Back to Basics and asks ‘What would William Beveridge say about topping up NHS care?’ NHS, Public Involvement | (2)
In a personal piece reflecting on his own healthcare needs, Andrew challenges current thinking on 'topping up' and consults the welfare state's urtext. I have been back to the source for all things enlightened about the British welfare state - Sir William Beveridge's magisterial and visionary 1942 report - produced in the darkest days of the second world war - entitled Social Insurance and Allied Services. I wanted to check on what he had said about people topping up their NHS care by paying a little bit extra on top of the what you get from the state as their entitlement. Did he predict that this would introduce the danger of a 'two tier' health service? Would Sir William agree with the modern day guardians of the NHS that "topping up" and "two-tierism" were heinous crimes to be discouraged at all costs? Far from it. The proponent of our universal and ...
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12.03.08 | Colin Adamson

March Newsletter Public Involvement | (0)
As I filled in my petition to keep the Gipsy Hill Post Office open, I fell to wondering what post offices are for anymore? Are they amongst the things that we do not use or indeed value until they are threatened with closure? We spend a lot of time agonising over how we can get the citizenry to join in and take an interest in consultation. The cynic would say that the infallible way to do it is to threaten to close something that few use but everyone values. Add to this an improved facility somewhere else and you have the makings of a monster row. Post offices, hospitals it is the same - the actual function of the shop or healthcare unit is forgotten and it becomes an abstract symbol of the collapse of life as we know it. The challenge to those of us who believe in consulting people ...
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09.03.08 | Andrew Craig

Complying with the Section 242 Duty to Consult and Involve Users of Health Services Disability, NHS, Public Involvement | (2)
From his perspective as a PEC member in London's PCT-land, Andrew Craig offers a personal view about how to start complying with the new legal duty in Section 242 and make it work to the advantage of good governance in the NHS. What is "Section 242"? The NHS loves shorthand and "Section 242" will soon be part of it: shorthand in fact for the general legal duty on the NHS to consult and involve service users in everything to do with planning, provision and delivery of services. The duty specifically applies where there are changes proposed in the manner in which services are delivered or in the range of services made available. A briefing about Section 242 is available from the Department of Health (December 2007: Gateway Ref 9138) Statutory guidance - i.e. compulsory - about the 242 duty and the related sections of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health ...
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