UK's 10 years on this journey

Here is a summary of what James Munro (CEO of Patient Opinion, UK) had to say about their 10 year journey.

The scientist Roy Amara once wrote: “we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run”. That sounds familiar.

When we set out on this path, in 2005, we imagined that within a year, perhaps two at most, we would be seeing hundreds of thousands of stories online, with tens of thousands of healthcare professionals engaging: reading, responding and making changes. So we definitely overestimated the effect in the short term. And sadly, it is still the case that the majority of patients and professionals alike remain blissfully unaware of Patient Opinion. The “dose” of our intervention remains too low to be truly therapeutic.

And yet, over the past 10 years much has undoubtedly changed. In 2005 nobody spoke of “patient experience”. Now it is a job title, a network, a topic. National policy reports – Francis, Keogh, Berwick – have urged the NHS to listen to the voices of patients, to make changes, to be transparent in their use of feedback. “Patients, carers and members of the public… should be confident that their feedback is being listened to and see how this is impacting on their own care and the care of others,” urged Keogh. And among Berwick’s recommendations: “All organisations should seek out the patient and carer voice as an essential asset in monitoring the safety and quality of care.”

Most service providers now understand that, increasingly, their feedback will arrive online and in public. And some – though far from all – now see that the insights of patients and carers are indeed essential to safe and effective healthcare. Everywhere on Patient Opinion you will find patients and staff creating learning and change from the “free gifts” of experience which people are donating through Patient Opinion.

What will the next 10 years bring? Technology will continue to evolve rapidly, running far ahead of the glacial pace of change in the culture of many healthcare organisations. Indeed, it seems increasingly likely that the widening gap between the everyday uses of networked technologies at home by patients and staff, and the absence of the same abilities in formal healthcare settings, will reach crisis point.

But culture does and will change, albeit at a slower pace than technology. The decade ahead will see both patients and staff increasingly networked, informed, and confident online. We will see the growth of connections between these online communities: that is, between those providing health care, and those using it. And these connections “across the divide” will themselves change culture.

And what must Patient Opinion do in the decade ahead? We must stay true to the understanding that, at the heart of all meaningful, memorable care, we will find not x-rays, drugs or surgery but listening, caring, empathic relationships. And sometimes it is relationships rather than the interventions of modern medicine which truly enable healing. But all too often when resources are tight it is the care itself that seems to be squeezed out of services.

So we will continue to innovate in support of our mission: to carry the voices of patients and carers into the heart of the health and care system. We will continue to find ways to connect patients and professionals reflecting on: “What was good? What could have been better?” And perhaps we will find, as we look back 10 years from now, that although we overestimated the effects of public online feedback in the short run, we did also underestimate the effects in the long run.