patients

An independent site about personal experiences of UK health services, good or bad. It is about honest and meaningful conversations between patients and health services.
Previously known as Patient Opinion

Toolkit compiled to support NHS staff in delivering Patient Focus and Public Involvement. It offers a number of tried and tested tools along with some more recently developed approaches.

Full Royal College of Physicians response to the Francis Inquiry report.

A growing number of people with dementia in the UK are becoming actively involved in groups to try to influence services and policies affecting people with dementia. The Dementia Engagement & Empowerment Project (DEEP) was a one-year investigation aiming to highlight groups and projects involving people with dementia. The report offers specific ways forward for organisations wishing to engage with people with dementia. Resource published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in October 2012. Summary and full report available.

Report to expand on the report 'Patient power (2009)', using research from GP practices in urban and rural settings in Scotland to illustrate that the way GP practices operate can vary considerably from whether they operate open surgeries to extended hours, have the ability to process repeat prescriptions online to whether they even have a website.

A guide to service design and productivity improvement for commissioners, clinicians and managers in primary care, secondary care and mental health.

Paper that focuses on the experiences of older people with multiple health problems, and particularly on their experiences inside hospital. Continuity is especially important for these older patients because: they are more likely to spend time in hospital and to be in hospital for longer; if they are frail, a stay in hospital can be life-changing; and, regrettably, in some hospitals and some wards older patients are exposed to unacceptable standards of care.

This systematic review was published by EPPI-Centre in 2011.Systematic reviews aim to find as much as possible of the research relevant to the particular research questions, and use explicit methods to identify what can reliably be said on the basis of these studies.

Following Lord Darzi’s pledge to pilot direct payments and individual budgets in health care, this paper provides a brief background to the concept and principles of these ways of working, before focusing in more detail on some frequently asked questions.

The paper is intended to help inform forthcoming pilots, and was initially commissioned by NHS West Midlands as part of their Investing for Health strategy.

Policy paper on what works to support patients to make informed choices in primary care.