Patient Experience Newsletter
Welcome
Welcome to the fourth edition of the Patient Experience Newsletter. As we enter summer, we hope you all find time to have a break and enjoy reading what we have been up to in the last three months. We have been busy celebrating our volunteers through events and national Volunteer’s Week, we have been dancing for Dementia Awareness Week, attending the Deaf Information Day in collaboration with the Centre for Deaf and Hard of Hearing, filming patient stories, doing outreach work to listen to various communities and getting to grips with Radar! Remember to follow us on X to keep up to date: @NBTPatient and email any of us if you want to find out more or work on understanding the patient experience in your area.
Emily Ayling, Head of Patient Experience
Patient Feedback & Engagement
Radar
In April we were excited to implement a new system called Radar for the management of PALS concerns and complaints. Once the system is fully embedded for PALS concerns and complaints, we will be able to develop analytics, create dashboards to display information quickly and easily to review our data. This will allow us to highlight areas and themes to focus on based on the feedback we are receiving from our patients and carers and help us work towards our aim in achieving an outstanding patient experience.
Further information about Radar and the user guides can be found on the Radar homepage on LINK. If you have any questions about PALS concerns or complaints in Radar, please contact your Divisional Patient Experience Teams in the first instance for advice and support.
Troy Crompton, Patient Experience Manager
Spotlight on the Volunteer Celebration
“I was grateful to be invited to the NBT Volunteers Celebration Event on the 18th of May at the Bristol Hotel. We were treated to beautiful décor, reception drinks, afternoon tea, a volunteers thank you presentation, a funny photo booth and entertainment with the hotel staff (secret waiters) singing for us and encouraging everyone to get up and dance. It felt like a proper celebration and I left feeling happy that my work with the Trust is valued so much.”
Anela Wood, Patient and Carer Partner
Over 180 volunteers joined us for this celebration and we congratulated our Long Service Award Winners of five, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years. We appreciate all our volunteers and are glad this event helped to make them feel valued! We look forward to the next year of volunteering at NBT.
Spiritual, Pastoral and Religious Care
Looking forward
Our SPaRC Chaplaincy team is looking forward to further developing our service in line with the four strands of our strategy. Here are just four things we want to achieve:
- Patient Focus: We will further develop our websites to make them more dynamic and informative as a resource for patients, families, carers, and staff.
- Team Focus: Following several staff changes last year and the appointment of new chaplains taking place, we are looking forward to a Team Day in September and to holding further reflective practice sessions together.
- Faith Communities: In November we will be celebrating National Inter Faith Week when we hope to host community faith groups and events which will promote the importance of SPaRC in hospital.
- 4. Staff Focus: We will continue supporting a range of staff wellbeing events and provide training to resource staff in the delivery of holistic care.
Keep an eye out for this upcoming work and get involved!
Revd. Mark Read, Chaplaincy Team Leader
Volunteer Services
What a great year!
In the last year we have work with an amazing 470 active volunteers across the Trust, across 35 different volunteering roles. Between April 2023 and March 2024, they conducted over 39,000 hours of volunteering.
This year we have successfully returned two volunteer roles in Maternity and also developed two new roles: the Patient Feedback role and Appointment Buddy role. The Appointment Buddy role was developed following a complaint made to the Trust, and the Patient Feedback role has been developed with our volunteers who have helped the role evolve into a wider remit, with greater impact. Developing roles in response to patient feedback and in collaboration with our volunteers has been a proud achievement.
This year in May also saw the incredible milestone of 10 years of the Move Makers. In May we also hosted our Volunteer Celebration Event which you will have heard all about from Anela and during the first week of June we celebrated National Volunteers’ Week.
Bwalya Treasure, Voluntary Services Manager
Fresh Arts
Arts on Referral
Jennifer Mills joined Fresh Arts as Arts on Referral Project Manager to support the delivery of our social prescribing programme for outpatients living with a long term chronic condition. Jennifer reflects on her year and the impact she has seen the programme have on patients:
“I’ve seen patients become absorbed in the creative process, focusing on what they’re making and often saying at the end of a session that they’re less aware of their pain or discomfort. Patients have told me “It really takes me to another place”.
Patients spend time with other people who may have a similar diagnosis. They can talk with each other, whilst being creative. Sometimes there appears to be an unspoken understanding, and strength, in being together in the group.
Every person I’ve met through the programmes demonstrates their creativity and often they surprise themselves. It’s a joy to witness people making a variety of art works, in an encouraging and kind space. Looking at the whole person and what can be achieved through relaxing and working with art materials is, I believe, a very important part of a person’s care.”
