By Leah Lamb, Research and Communications Coordinator
It was happy work birthday to me earlier this year! Back in August, I reached 15 years under my belt (excluding a few months off here and there to have a couple of kids). They say time flies when you’re having fun and all that but it genuinely doesn’t feel anywhere like that long. Perhaps that’s because things are constantly changing, no time to get bored or rest on your laurels.
These past 15 years have seen lots of significant changes in the NHS from the publication of the Constitution which set out core values such as treating patients with dignity and respect and giving patients greater control of their health through informed choice, to significant restructuring enshrined by the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which saw GPs take on the role of commissioners in Clinical Commissioning Group and strategic health authorities and primary care trusts abolished.
During my time one thing has remained, the value that the NHS puts on the involvement of patients, carers and the public to ensure that our healthcare system meets the needs of the communities it serves.
To that end, I have been listening to patients for a long time now; from learning about what life is like for someone with Ulcerative Colitis, to understanding the problems relocating a GP surgery can cause, to gauging awareness of urgent care services, and I thought I’d share a few things I’ve learnt about carrying out this type of work.
- Don’t reinvent the wheel
Before you decide to embark on a project, have a look at what has already been done. The internet is a massive resource and I’d recommend visiting the Patient Experience Library which has collated patient and public involvement reports into a handy free-to-access database. Even if you think your project is individual to your organisation or community group, have a look, you might be surprised at what data is already out there.
And even if you can’t find exactly what you’re looking for, have a look at similar work and think about what techniques have been used, surveys that you could take some questions from or how they’ve presented their findings, there is always something which means you don’t need to start from a completely blank page.
- It won’t take that long, will it?
No matter how long you have for a project, it is never enough! To truly get to the heart of the issue takes time, time to identify communities of interest, time to develop relationships so that people feel comfortable sharing their views with you, time to organise the groups, interviews or questionnaires, and when that’s all done, time to process what you’ve been told and turn it into something people will read or watch.
There will always be a deadline though, so my advice when planning a project is to overestimate how long it will take and negotiate a realistic deadline with wriggle room if you can.
- Pigs might fly
You might have the best-looking project plan in the world with a strong methodology and a long list of project risks and controls, alongside a dedicated project team, but sometimes things still don’t go according to plan. You need to pause, refocus and tweak that plan to ensure it does not fail.
Covid-19 is the obvious example here – when we were planning a piece of work in early 2020 we never for a second considered a global pandemic might thwart our plans for a series of face-to-face interviews with patients, but it did! After locking down, we took a deep breath and redesigned our methodology and in the end got some brilliant insights from patients via Zoom and the faithful old telephone.
So, you might not be able to predict the next pandemic but ensure that your project plan has built-in flexibility and expect the unexpected!
- You are not alone
Never underestimate the power of partnerships. We couldn’t do our job without our partners and we’ve spent years developing relationships with organisations who support our local communities. This means that when we’ve got a particular piece of work to do we know exactly which organisations to go to, to ensure their service users views are included.
We’re constantly learning from them – how best to engage with particular groups through a face-to-face chat or WhatsApp group for example, where best to engage and what support they might need to take part. This makes the process so much easier for us and ensures that we’ll get involvement from our target cohorts.
So, if you’re planning some engagement work, take time to think about the organisations around you – who could offer advice and inspiration? Who would help you reach particular communities? But make sure that you’re giving something back to them too.
- What happened next?
There is nothing worse than giving your time and sharing your personal views and not hearing anything further about the project. Of course you explained to focus group participants what the project was about and what you wanted to know from them but did you offer to feed back to them after the research was finished?
Consultation fatigue is a common thing but you are much more likely to get continued involvement from people if you explain to them what happened next. What was the point in me giving up my time and sharing my experiences? People want to know what value their input had and if possible, what the impact was. You could offer people the option to receive a summary document of your report, produce a poster for organisations to share or offer to come and speak to them – whatever they want – but always offer!
