This month marks the 10th year we’ve been partnered with Care Opinion, the independent feedback website for the NHS. In 2009 when we first began working with Care Opinion (Patient Opinion, as it was known then), we were their pioneering mental health Trust and over the subsequent decade, we’re proud to have maintained our position as one of their flagship organisations.

It was also in 2009 that we created and began distributing a Trustwide survey, the Service User and Carer Experience survey (versions below), and formed the Service User Experience Group which exists still albeit a little different now.
So, this year is a significant one for our approach to capturing and responding to patient and carer experience and we are marking it in lots of different ways:
- We held a big Feedback Matters event last month (more details here) and were happy to present at a learning event with the Care Opinion team in Sheffield in the following week
- We had a beautiful quote from a Care Opinion story hand-painted (by J Chapman Signs) onto our wall at the Trust’s HQ building – see image below
- We are hosting a focused session at the Trust’s Leadership Council in April on the importance of listening to, understand and responding to feedback
- We are holding a Care Opinion ‘superuser’ masterclass in April, to help our most regular and skilled Care Opinion users and advocates to really step up their game
- We are tweeting some of our best stories and responses from the survey and Care Opinion (we do this all the time, but we’re doing a bit more of it at the moment)
- We are recognising 10 people with a Care Opinion Hero award (and gifting them with a ‘badge of honour’!) to thank them for their commitment to seeking and responding to patient feedback
- We are in the process of scheduling new Patient and Carer Experience training for staff and volunteers with our colleagues and friends in Learning and Organisational Development

This blog is also part of the celebrations, as the introduction to a series of 10 blogs marking what we’ve learned over the last 10 years. We’ve commissioned blogs from different perspectives, and will re-blog some oldies-but-goodies that have previously been shared on either our own blog or Care Opinion’s blog.
To follow what we’re up to for this 10 year anniversary, see updates on our Twitter account and here on our blog.
If you’d like to contribute to this blog, or want to ask us anything/get involved, please contact us on involve@nottshc.nhs.uk or contact us on Twitter.