This is what you told us about communication

To know a bit more about people’s experiences of healthcare we asked volunteers from a local patient group in NHS Tayside to speak to us. We were interested in their personal experiences of different types of communication with healthcare providers. In particular we wanted to know what they thought was done well and what could have been better. We have captured some of what they told us in the video “This is what you told us about communication.”

The day was organised and delivered by Dr Phyllis Easton, Health Intelligence Manager and lead for Health Literacy, NHS Tayside and Dr Kate Arrow, Scottish Clinical Leadership Fellow and Anaesthetic Specialty Registrar with NHS Tayside. Kate was previously involved in the development of a pop-up shop designed to allow people to share their experiences & stories of their appointments journey. This proved to be really successful so we “borrowed” the approach for our session.

The pop-up shop enabled a really good discussion. It utilised the built in touchpoints and helped our volunteers think about the different parts of their journey, encouraging them to reflect on their experiences. Kate was on hand to guide them, listening to their stories and noting down their suggestions as they went along.  Following this our volunteers met with Phyllis to discuss their thoughts about communication within healthcare.

We asked for their thoughts on when they have received good and poor communication about their healthcare and how that made them feel.  The following is a snapshot of the feedback we received;

“I feel very relaxed with her and I can talk to her as a person…I am not just another annoying person who wants to see a doctor.”

“There was no explanation as to why I had to do this”

“After then finding this information out we can…get a good understanding of how to control it, how to make the situation better and how just to understand it better”

“…of course that just leaves a negative effect”

We can’t thank our volunteers enough for being so forthcoming and happy to talk about their experiences. They provided lots of useful feedback which can only help with NHS Scotland’s aim of improving services and access for all.