The Communication, feedback, media group meets Mondays 10-3 at Rosewood Involvement Centre in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire.
As part of our involvement in publications we often review articles and personal stories for communicating in a public forum. Our Trust monthly magazine Positive and our annual involvement report being just two of many publications. Within an array of subjects we actively promote our achievements and raise issues around service changes and improvements. As a group, we thought blogging about the work would be a good way to share what we do to inform people more openly about the roles involvement volunteers take on.
Some of our involvement volunteers are trained to take part in staff interviews. Recently, we got together to write interview questions for a team leader post at Rampton Hospital. We ask our questions from an Involvement and Recovery viewpoint. Upcoming interviews include a post for a social services manager and a consultant in the forensics division.
The group work on several things at once including ‘You said we did’ posters created from the Involvement Centres quarterly satisfaction survey. The posters list things that are good and also things that can be improved. All comments are reviewed and actioned then displayed in the centre so everyone can see the outcomes of their involvement. Here is some feedback we received from service users and carers.
We contribute to the Trust reports and we are planning to write an article about Patient Opinion and how our involvement volunteers link their roles into gathering feedback. We have been involved in project called the Patient Feedback Challenge where involvement volunteers worked with a staff team from Newark and Sherwood. The project was about capturing and responding to feedback from service users and carers. All of us in the group feel this important work needs to be included in the Trust Annual report.
Our other work involves The Story Shop where volunteers tell a range of stories across mental and physical health on topics like bi-polar, schizophrenia, depression, substance misuse, psychosis and other physical health issues such as diabetes and stroke.
People visiting ‘the shop’ can ask someone to share their personal experience of mental or physical health face to face. It’s a great way to find out about it in a more informal and relaxed way. The Story Shop runs public events in schools, libraries, cafes, colleges and universities. Since the initiative started in 2009 more than 3000 people have shared their stories.
And that’s it for now! Look out for our next update where we will tell you more of what goes on at The Rosewood Involvement Centre.
Rosewood Involvement Volunteers
This is all very admirable and it has done and is doing a lot of good, not only to the Trust and its patients but to those volunteers at Rosewood who are playing an important and fulfilling role.
I am a bit disappointed that the initiatives have been going for quite a long time and that is good. However what about new ideas and initiatives? Things have to progress or they stagnate. You all have great intelligence and fine imagination. How about some brain storming sessions. Also what about asking the Executives and Managers what the Service Users can do next to improve the situation for the patients, the Trust and themselves.
Hi Michael
Thank you for your well observed comments. You are right, these initiatives are well established and going from strength to strength. This blog was submitted by Rosewood Volunteers as part of a new initiative for Involvement. We asked them what they wanted to write about and this is only one of many volunteer articles about to hit our blog!
Our volunteers are learning to communicate to a wider audience and Social Media is one of these new areas. Blogging is one way of reaching that audience.
One of the many tasks as a new Foundation Trust is to engage our Trust membership and Governors into contributing in some of the ways you suggest. This is already happening and we are just starting to show how via social media.
I am pleased you have mentioned the sort of things you would like to see as we want to reflect the views of the people who work with us.
The use of Twitter to engage a new audience is proving popular. We are hearing new viewpoints, conversation and making new partnerships. Exciting and challenging times! Our Involvement and Experience Group has one blog on this site, look out for the next, again written by volunteers.
Commissioners, Healthwatch, NHS Choices and Patient Opinion are some of the influencers out there when it comes to feedback and our feedback website has won awards for innovation. Have a look at the latest changes on the website.
http://feedback.nottinghamshirehealthcare.nhs.uk/service/what-weve-done
We now have feedback volunteer roles where volunteers gather feedback face to face using iPads and good old paper forms too! The integration of our volunteering and involvement team has brought us closer together and new media such as films via iPads is proving a popular way of reaching audiences who may struggle with accessibility.
We are more acutely aware than ever about our presence as a Trust that engages people in the right way and really listens. We still have some way to go but we are determined and passionate about the journey we need to make to achieve this. I will ask our team to share some of the new initiatives we are involved in.
One of the things we are in the middle of is refreshing the new Carers Families and Friends Strategy. Based on the success of the Triangle of Care rolled out at Rampton Hospital, the Triangle of Care will be incorporated into the new three year plan meaning all staff will receive carer awareness training across the organisation. It requires teams and staff to self-assess their best practice around carers, families and friends. We now have carer leads across all the directorates; this is also a new area of development.
We will report more here about Involvement and on our new Trust Website site which is about to be launched!
I’m not going to tell you everything new that’s going on in Involvement now as I want to leave you with something to look forward to. Keep commenting, we really appreciate you keeping us on our toes!
Jane Danforth – Involvement & Experience Officer