Patient Opinion is an online platform that allows patients to share feedback about their healthcare experiences. It aims to capture real-time patient experiences to help improve services. Stories are moderated before being published. The West Midlands Health Authority has commissioned Patient Opinion to provide services to all NHS organizations in the region until April 2012. As a subscriber, the PCT can use reports from Patient Opinion to supplement other quality information sources and monitor services. Patient Opinion notifies the PCT of any stories from their area and helps respond to improve transparency. The PCT will use Patient Opinion to engage patients and staff until March 2012 to help influence service provision.

1. October 2010
Patient Opinion
An online feedback mechanism to capture real time patient experience
1. Introduction
Patient Opinion is an on-line feedback platform for patients to tell their stories of health
care. It works by inviting patients to comment on any experience they may have had
and to share that experience with others. All stories received are checked and
moderated by Patient Opinion before being published on their website to protect against
potential abuse of the system including any malicious or defamatory comments. The
service is free for those who wish to contribute their story and those who wish to view
the stories for information, research or as part of quality monitoring.
Patient Opinion is a social enterprise and independent from both the NHS and
Government. It’s a not-for-profit organization which makes its money through
subscriptions. West Midlands Health Authority has commissioned Patient Opinion to
provide their services to all NHS organizations in the West Midlands until 31st April 2012.
South Staffordshire PCT is one of only two sites that have been asked to monitor the
effectiveness of Patient Opinion from a commissioning perspective and to share any
learning with other organisations. As a subscriber, the PCT is able to extract information
through a variety of reports, which can be used to supplement information received from
alternative sources. All stories received by Patient Opinion are also submitted to the
Care Quality Commission.
Patient Opinion does not seek to replace existing methods of obtaining feedback, rather
to offer another option and to give NHS Trusts the opportunity to respond thus
demonstrating openness and transparency.

2. 2. Positive outcomes
Listening to what patients say about services is an essential component of a successful
strategy for improving patients’ experience. For example
• understanding current problems in care delivery
• informing continuous improvement and redesign of services
• helping professionals reflect on their own and their team’s practice
• monitoring the impact of any changes
• facilitating benchmarking between services
• informing referring clinicians about the quality of services
• informing commissioners and patients about the quality of services
• helping patients choose high quality providers
• enabling public accountability
In addition to supporting service development through data collection and patient
engagement, Patient Opinion can also assist with the management of an organisation’s
reputation. This is especially true of critical postings where a good, thoughtful response
is likely to win more credibility with the public. Patient Opinion can also enable an
organisation to communicate any service changes that have been made in response to
comments received to a wider audience or to explain why certain decisions have been
made.
3. How it works in practice
Any member of the public, including patients, carers and members of staff are able to
rate and post comments and suggestions about the experience they have had of health
services as well as being able to view comments published by others.
The PCT, through nominated administrators, receives notification from Patient Opinion
of any stories logged by patients either with a South Staffordshire postcode or where

3. patients have used a health service within the PCT area. The PCT also has the option of
requesting stories about any service providers outside the area that they commission
services from.
Patient Opinion ‘tag’ comments received to the most appropriate person within the
provider concerned with a remit to respond to stories. Responses could include
additional information about the service being commented on or a request for the
individual to contact them directly so that a more detailed investigation can be carried
out.
Where changes to the service are being explored or acted upon as a result of the
comments received, providers are able to post such information, which in turn could be
viewed by any other visitors to the site. This will also help to support the PCT’s legal
responsibility to publish evidence of where patient engagement has helped to influence
service development and provision.
The PCT is then able to extract information from Patient Opinion in a variety of ways,
such as by service provider, by treatment received or by positive or negative comments.
This information can be used in conjunction with other sources of information, which are
already being collected as part of quality monitoring and service development.
4. Way forward
Following the PCTs subscription, a number of steps need to be taken to gain maximum
use of the site and its benefits until 31st March 2012. These include:
• Briefing to Strategic Public Engagement Committee
• Identification of administrators and reviewers to ensure appropriate and
prompt responses to postings
• Communication Plan (supported by limited resources from Patient
Opinion)

4. • Briefing to Patient Council
• All stories received to be logged and reviewed at Patient Experience
Monitoring Group for further analysis and action (All stories received
requiring immediate action will have already been dealt with and will be
included in the monitoring.)
5. Post PCT and Practice based Commissioning
Patient Opinion is designed to operate within all health settings, including Practice
based Commissioning (PbC) although the information cannot yet be received by GP
practice level as this may lead to the identification of individual members of staff.
Benefits to PbC Consortia, however, are the same as to the PCT, i.e. they would be able
to received feedback on:
• GP Practice services (by District or Borough Council areas)
• all commissioned services
• patient feedback on specific provider services, i.e. their views on discharge, etc.
Discussions are planned for Patient Opinion to come and present to PbC Consortia
within the PCT area to explore how it can best be used to support the needs of patient
engagement within PBC.
Frequently asked questions
Web-based systems always discriminate against the old, people with Learning
Disabilities and those who are illiterate or don’t speak English
In large measures this may be true however there are groups of people within all parts
of society that are able to use web-based systems and Patient Opinion is not intended to
replace other mechanisms but to supplement them. Patient Opinion has also worked up
a number of ways to deal with this bias.

5. Online feedback is very attractive to young people and people who are hard of hearing
and Patient Opinion is currently designing a more user friendly service for vulnerable
adults and those with learning disabilities.
Are there other ways that patients can share their stories apart from online?
Comment cards are provided so that people can write down their comments and send
them off to the freepost address where Patient Opinion will post their comment /
feedback on the web site. A free-phone number is available so that people can ring
Patient Opinion with their comments and again staff will post their comment on the web
site. With regard to younger people Patient Opinion has introducing Twitter and
accepting text comments which are posted on the website.
Will NHS organizations be able to identify patients from their stories and thereby
put them off submitting their stories?
If someone posts a comment that Patient Opinion staff feel will identify the individual
they will advise them accordingly and give them the opportunity to revise their
comments to ensure anonymity is maintained. Trust staff will not be able to respond
directly to the individual but would post a response to ask the individual to contact them
as appropriate.
Who else can use the service?
Staffordshire LINks has been offered the option of free subscription and will be taking
this up. Westminster MPs have also been offered Patient Opinion. This means that
MPs will be able to sign up to alerts when comments are posted from postcodes within
their constituency or about hospitals and services they are interested in.
The following link takes you to the Patient Opinion homepage to give you an idea of how
it works: www.patientopinion.org.uk
Vanessa Day/Adele Edmondson
Patient and Public Engagement Leads