Patient Voices digital stories use video, audio, still images and music to convey patients', carers', practitioners' and managers' own stories in a unique way. They are intended to touch the hearts of managers, clinicians and others striving to improve the quality of health and social care. Workshops are increasingly being used to engage with, and evidence outputs from, the Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) and patient engagement agendas, together with being used to provide qualitative evidence of the patient experience.
Most stories are gathered during small-group workshop sessions with storytellers, who may be patients, carers, managers and/or healthcare professionals. These workshops typically last between two and four days, with pacing and level of technical content adjusted to suit each group of storytellers. The Patient Voices workshops are run using a methodology developed and enhanced by Pip Hardy and Tony Sumner over several years for use in health and social care and educational settings. The aim of a workshop is to faciliate storytellers in a journey through a process which will result in them producing a Patient Voices digital story which is 'Effective, Affective and Reflective' (Sumner, 2008).