Your feedback made a difference at UHDB #YouSaidWeDid
At University Hospitals Derby and Burton (UHDB), we recognise that good patient experience is a crucial part of delivering exceptional care and hearing from patients, their families and our communities is vital to understand what we do well and what we don't do so well. This feedback presents valuable opportunities for us to continually learn and improve how we do things and embody the 'always improving' culture that helps us deliver better patient care, experience, and outcomes.
The Patient Experience, Advice, and Support Services team have actively listened to feedback from people in our communities to understand what matters and worked hard over the last year to gather patient feedback working closely with colleagues to make improvements across the Trust, through our 'You Said, We Did' programme.
Between January and March 2024, we heard feedback that patients and their families didn't always know who to contact for help when they had a concern, and as a result, we listened and acted by issuing 'Get In Touch' leaflets. These were rolled out across medicine wards and detail who can be contacted to help resolve concerns, provide explanations, and take action at the point of care. This links with our Trust values of openness, and compassion, listening to understand and meet the needs of our patients and their families.
Between April and June 2024, we had feedback that patients with autism were feeling as though they were treated differently across our Trust locations and were sometimes misunderstood or dismissed.
From this, a parent, and service user attended our patient experience group meeting with various colleagues across the Trust to help them understand how people with autism should be responded to consistently throughout the Trust.
As a result, that person now supports our Vulnerable Adults Team in providing face-to-face training for staff, and for sessions where she is not available, a video can be shown which features an interview between her and one of the Trust's Learning Disability nurses. Further work is underway involving maternity colleagues to explore how her experiences and those of her daughter, who also has autism, can be utilised to raise awareness within maternity services. This supports the Trust's mission to be a more inclusive organisation.
| You Said | We Did |
| “Inpatients, their families and carers didn’t know who to contact for help” | ‘Get in touch’ leaflets were rolled out across medicine wards. These detail who can be contacted and helps to resolve concerns before they come to the Patient Advice and Liaison Service. |
| “More support was needed for patients being discharged from Intensive Therapy Unit” | Intensive Therapy Unit staff have designed a diary to document a patient's time in the Intensive Care Unit, that they can take with them to a general ward and when discharged. |
| “Young people’s survey designs didn’t engage their audience” | Engagement team are working with children and young people to design more appropriate surveys with the aim of increasing responses. |
| “Lack of privacy and dignity for induction of labour patients” | Side rooms are now available for induction of labour patients. |
| “Lack psychology support for stroke patients, pre and post discharge” |
Charity, Headway, are now offering in reach services on the Stroke Rehab Unit once per week to patients approaching discharge. |
| “Consent was not always monitored” | Feedback has been used to inform updates to our consent policy and training. |
| “How patients with autism are treated within our Trust varies between location and staff members. Patients are sometimes misunderstood or dismissed.” |
A patient, parent and service user attended our patient experience group and has met with various colleagues across the Trust to help staff understand how all people with autism are different and should be treated equally. Maternity colleagues are using the experience story for learning across teams. |
| “Patients undergoing an endoscopy reported having issues withdrawing consent during a procedure. There were also concerns around comfort during procedures and limited solutions to address this.” |
Refresher training for staff will be provided on; withdrawal of consent, reassessing patient discomfort and offering alternative solutions to aid patients' comfort. The operations policy has recently been updated including the withdrawal of consent. |
Why patient experience matters
Our colleagues go above and beyond to deliver high-quality, compassionate care, often in challenging circumstances. These efforts positively impact patients and their families, helping them feel supported and valued during their time with us.
Together, we can continue to make a positive difference in the care we provide and ensure that patient feedback drives meaningful change.
Kerry Than, Interim Head of Patient Experience and Insight at UHDB said: "We embrace all feedback as an opportunity to understand and recognise that we need to devote time and focus to listening, understanding, engaging and working with our patients, carers and families to develop improvements based on what matters to them."