Transforming patient experience, WITH patients

I had the privilege of speaking yesterday at the King's Fund Transforming Patient Experience conference. The opportunity to speak about the role that patients can play in improving this has made me think more deeply about both what we can bring to the improvement process as patients, and what some of the challenges are. This post is a summary of the topics I covered in my talk. An abridged video of my talk is available here, thanks to the King's Fund.

Shoosmiths Improving Care conference

I recently had the opportunity to talk on behalf of the Patients Association at the Shoosmiths Improving Care conference, held at the Kings Fund in March. It was a very interesting day debating the topical issues around care. I was the last speaker of the day and wanted to bring everything together, focussing on the patient.

 

Thank you to Shoosmiths for organising a stimulating day, the opportunity to speak and for producing the video above.

#PatientLeaders

Every week there are new reports out looking at every aspect of healthcare and no matter how many long train journeys I have, I rarely manage to read them all. But last week was different - two very interesting reports were published that I read straight away! There was one from the Kings Fund, Transforming our health system: ten priorities for commissioners, that I was pleased to read, because it placed self-management as the first priority for Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) - one of my personal passions.
My other passion was left unsatisfied by this report, as David Gilbert noted on Twitter....

... But a second report last week picked up where the Kings Fund didn't - Bring it on - 40 ways to support patient leadership, from the Centre for Patient Leadership

This report brilliantly documents the breadth and depth of work that patient leaders can contribute to. I was particularly pleased to read it because I was included on the last page, as a case study! It is an honour to have been asked, and to be included in the report.

Patient Leaders is a concept that is growing thanks to the brilliant and tireless work of David Gilbert (@InHealthAssoc) and Mark Doughty at the Centre for Patient Leadership. I would highly recommend their weekly Twitter chats on Tuesdays 8-9pm, using the hashtag #patientleaders.

#IntegratedCare discussions with The King's Fund and National Voices

This morning I joined the Twitter conversation around integrated care that was hosted by The King's Fund and National Voices. There were a lot of interesting points made, which I wanted to capture here.

Integrated care had been a hot discussion topic for some time now, and whilst it was very encouraging to hear the issues raised, the next step is for some change! I agree with Nick Goodwin above, and sense there is a lot of old ground being covered, stating the obvious.