Staff and Patients Setting
Standards Together
Patient Experience Network
National Awards January 2011
Why was it so important?
• Patient experience low, yet a key priority
• Recognition of low staff morale – focus on
frontline & back office services for outpatients
• Needed a long term fix with maximum impact,
ownership & engagement from patients & staff
• Emphasis on patient and “customer” care
Especially with:
• Three hospital sites, outpatient activity on all
• High profile service relocation between sites,
new models of care - inpatient, A&E, Surgery
What was involved?
Agreeing the aims:
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improve patient experience
raise standards and increase the Trust reputation
empower staff and patients
developing simple but clear standards for all
building on Trust ‘Pledge’ and our standards
achieve with no budget and in house resource!!!
Two strands of implementation
Communication Strategy Trust wide
Specific culture change driven by staff at frontline
Consult
>
Engage
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Deliver
Consult for both work strands
• Patients
• Staff
• Public/Visitors
• Foundation Trust
Outcome
• Patients / Hospital Volunteers
• Clinic nurses – all grades
• Health Care Assistants
• Doctors & Registrars
• Managers /Receptionists
• Health Records staff
• Clinic Preparation
• Booking clerks
• Medical Secretaries
• 180 suggestions
Outcome
• Interest and buy-in from
• gaining trust, open minds
staff/patients to the concept • new ideas, reality checked
• staff defining standards
• link to ‘Going for Gold’
All leading to 5 Gold Standards
5 Gold Standards
Engage
Series
of 5 eGold
nuggets Posters & badges
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Disposable food
tray cover for all
patient meals
Screen messages
Intranet pop ups
Business /reminder cards
Mystery Shoppers
Engage – staff teams
• Contributing, listening & role play!
• Walking in our patients’ shoes
• Creating ownership of the work
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Introducing cross boundary team work
• Meeting of minds – admin / reception /
clinical / patients /senior management
• Valuing all contributions & celebrating
success with patients
and staff together
Deliver – Communication
• High profile “Opening Ceremony” by the Medical
Director - overwhelmed with attendees
• Gold ticket event – chance to win hamper of gold
goodies!
• Assessment and Audit of every ward/department over
6 weeks to monitor adoption of Gold Standards
• “Gold Medal Ceremony” by the Director of Nursing
– Gold medals for individual staff assessed as providing
outstanding patient care
– Trophies for the teams assessed as providing outstanding
patient experience
– Overall trophy for the team assessed as delivering best
against the 5 gold standards – adopted as ANNUAL award
Deliver – Patient Experience
• Significant improvements on National
Survey by Picker Institute
• 92% of patients would now rate their overall care as
good/very good or excellent (87.8% in Sept -09)
• ‘these (July 10) results showcase a big improvement
since the March 10 and Sept 09 survey’ (Independent
Picker Report)
Deliver – Culture Change
• Staff involved and keen to contribute
• Patients noticing a difference and commenting
• Outpatient teams working across disciplines to
improve the patient experience
• Creation and implementation of new ‘core
behavioural standards’ by staff
• Staff proud to wear their badges & display the
5 ‘Gold Standard’ posters
• Outpatient staff won 2 awards in ‘Gold’ audits
Impact
• Organisation wide
– Patients empowered
– Culture change towards customer care
– Staff morale improved
– Proud to offer gold standards
– CEO receives more compliment letters
“ My team like the simple easy to understand messages of the
Going for Gold concept. They have been interpreted at a
local level, but remain significant for all” (Senior Nurse)
What next?
• The 5 gold standards included in all job
descriptions
• Regular Independent Surveys to assess
patient perception and experience
• Internal “mystery shoppers” & audits
• Future ‘gold medal’ ceremonies
• “Gold” theme days (Health & Well-being)
• More e- Gold nuggets
• Continuing to embed in the organisation
What can we learn/share?
• Process must be owned by staff and
patients
• Develop a “branding” to be proud of
• Simple, clear, relevant messages to all
staff (not just clinical)
• Senior team and clinical involvement
• It is transferable process & format – but
for success it must be local & relevant
Big changes – low cost – major difference
The patient experience is
your responsibility
Going for Gold