Have an opinion on Scotland’s health services or an experience worth sharing to help others ? Share it on Patient Opinion

PATIENTS using Scotland’s health services are now able to have their opinions & experiences of using the country’s medical services published online via the new Patient Opinion website, announced today by the Scottish Government’s Health Secretary Alex Neil, who said he wanted to hear patient’s stories first hand whether good or bad to help improve health services. The move follows a £160,000 roll out across health boards including the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS).

Patient Opinion provides a confidential way for patients to share their healthcare experiences, good or bad, online. Comments are then passed to relevant staff who can respond or use the feedback to help change services.

The Scottish Ambulance Service participated in an initial pilot of Patient Opinion and have already used patient feedback to help shape improvements to the Patient Transport Service. This involved enhancing the response to patients with mental health care needs and highlighting positive feedback with staff across the service to share and learn from best practice examples.

Health Secretary Alex Neil said: “We want to hear patient’s stories first hand in their own words, whether it’s good or bad, because it helps us to make our health services better.Now patients, carers and their families will be able to let health boards know, openly and publically, how a service was for them and where it can improve. And if our health professionals are doing a great job we want them to know about it.”

Mr Neil continued : “The best thing is, staff will receive this feedback in real-time rather than having to wait months for the results of our traditional paper surveys. Many of these stories can be inspirational and where our health professionals are doing a great job we want them to know about it. I hope it will be a more accessible way for patients and families to give their views, and will add to the tools that NHS boards already have in place to get feedback from patients. Every organisation takes feedback from customers very seriously and the NHS should be no different. The NHS belongs to everyone and they should have a say in how its run and what they want.”

Pauline Howie, Chief Executive, Scottish Ambulance Service, said: “The Scottish Ambulance Service recognises that it’s helpful for patients and carers to have a wide range of options for giving feedback on their care experience. Patient Opinion is an increasingly useful feedback channel, which is helping the Service improve patient care.”

Dr Paul Hodgkin, Chief Executive of Patient Opinion, said: “Lots of people have already taken the opportunity to share their stories on Patient Opinion. We want to encourage even more people to get involved in making our health services even better by sharing their experiences and watching what happens as a result.”

Tom Waterson, Chair, UNISON Scotland’s Health Committee said: “Unison welcomes the Health Secretary’s move to encourage “real-time” dialogue between health boards, staff and patients. Patient stories can make a difference in many ways, both to the quality of care and the morale of hard working NHS staff in their desire to deliver world class care. They can be powerful motivational reminders to frontline staff of how they are making a difference to someone’s life and play an important role in educating the healthcare professionals of the future.”

Case study

One patient has already seen how the Scottish Ambulance Service has taken on board patient feedback through the website.

After feeding back about their experience, the user posted: “I would like to briefly update this. Since writing about my experience here I have had very helpful and reassuring conversations with the Scottish Ambulance Service. At a face-face meeting I was able to talk through what happened and ask some questions that I had. I felt comfortable and free to say what I needed to and I feel very validated and understood. I thank the staff members of the Scottish Ambulance Service who talked with me for their time and understanding.”

From today, the service will be available for the following health boards to respond to feedback from patients: NHS Highland, NHS Shetland, NHS Ayrshire & Arran, Scottish Ambulance Service, Healthcare Improvement Scotland, and National Education Scotland. The remaining health boards will be asked to adopt the service by the end of the year.

Related information: Patient Opinion website Full case study story

SNP broken promises - Accident & Emergency cutback plan will still be implemented

Despite pledges from the SNP to save A&E departments, NHS managers have recommended that cutting emergency services in the west of Scotland is still the best plan .. and the SNP seem agreeable to it.

Another turn around for the now less than shiny SNP ..

The Herald reports :

Health board sticks to A&E cutback plan

HELEN PUTTICK, Health Correspondent

Cutting emergency services in the west of Scotland is still the best plan, according to new health board reports - despite SNP promises to save A&E departments.

Proposals which would downgrade the treatment available at Ayr Hospital and Monklands Hospital, Airdrie, come out on top in the latest analysis published by NHS managers.

Despite being told by Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon to revise proposals and being told by a new scrutiny panel that the case for cuts was weak, the two health boards are still pressing for change.

NHS Lanarkshire, which runs Monklands Hospital, has listed a plan - known as option B - where it would lose intensive care, emergency medicine and surgery as their "preferred scenario".

NHS Ayrshire and Arran, which runs Ayr, rated a scheme which would axe emergency surgery from the hospital and reduce the level of critical care, top of their list.

Dr Robert Cumming, chairman of the Scottish Health Campaigns Network, which unites groups fighting hospital service closures, said: "I think the health boards are trying to stick to their guns no matter what. They seem to be going through all the right processes but maybe coming out with the answers they want in the end. Hopefully they will not get away with it."

After Ms Sturgeon announced she was reversing the Labour government's decision to downgrade the two A&Es, she ordered the boards to bring forward new proposals.The results are revealed in final reports which are being sent to the panel set up to scrutinise the process.

In their document NHS Lanarkshire say option B is their preferred scenario, but admit it "does reduce access for patients in the Monklands area for emergency care and this is likely to be less favoured by the public".

However, they also give a second option, G, which keeps much of the existing front line at Monklands but allows centralisation of specialist medical fields in future.

Alex Neil, SNP Central Scotland MSP, said he fundamentally disagreed with their first choice. "I think option G is the only one that fulfils both the letter and the spirit of the commitment to keep an A&E in Monklands," he said.

Alec Clark, chairman of Girvan Community Council and an opponent of the cuts, said: "When they (the SNP) said the A&E would remain open, we expected it meant open with full back-up services and I think that is crucial."

The public representatives involved in the scoring in both Lanarkshire and Ayrshire backed the options which ultimately came out on top. However Dr Cumming said: "There were thousands of people who signed petitions asking to keep the A&Es. There is no question the status quo is what people want."

Timeline

# JANUARY 2006: NHS Lanarkshire launches public consultation which includes downgrading A&E in either Monklands, Airdrie or Hairmyres, East Kilbride.

# JUNE 2006: Board agrees to downgrade Monklands A&E.

# AUGUST 2006: Lewis Macdonald, deputy health minister, announces Monklands will be downgraded.

# JUNE 2007: New SNP health secretary Nicola Sturgeon says she is reversing decisions to downgrade Monklands and Ayr Hospital.

# DECEMBER 2007: NHS Lanarkshire's final submission to a scrutiny panel is published, listing an option which would remove acute medicine, surgery and intensive care from Monklands.

NHS in Scotland invokes culture of deception to cover up mistakes

A recent survey of NHS workers found that many said mistakes & incidents in the health service have either been covered up or not reported.

The NHS has long operated a policy of tell a lie before telling the truth in serious cases of wrongdoing have caused even death to patients ...

The Scotsman reports :

NHS in Scotland 'not reporting mistakes'

LYNDSAY MOSS

THE NHS in Scotland is failing to do enough to deal with mistakes and near-misses which could harm patients and staff, a report revealed yesterday.

A survey of almost 4,000 NHS workers found 54 per cent said some incidents in the health service which should have been reported were not.

Experts said a blame culture in the NHS and fears that admitting mistakes could affect people's careers were partly to blame for the problem.

Incidents which should be reported in the NHS include mistakes which have led to disability, injury, disease, suffering or even death.

The latest report, by NHS Quality Improvement Scotland, found that no health board had achieved a desirable score in their measure of incident reporting. But it said the incident-reporting culture in the NHS was healthier than some other organisations, and was on a par with many health services in other countries.

The report, "NHS Scotland Incident Reporting Culture", gave each health board a score out of 300 based on responses to an anonymous questionnaire, which covered attitudes to reporting errors, whether action was taken to ensure mistakes were not repeated and the response of managers.

The highest scoring board was NHS Lothian, with a score of 200.38, followed by NHS Borders (200) and NHS Lanarkshire (199.30). This compared with a low of 170.3 for the Scottish Ambulance Service and 179.83 in NHS Western Isles.

The report's authors said it was "encouraging" that all boards achieved a score above the mid-point.

But they said no board achieved the "desirable" score of between 240 and 300.

Lead researcher Steve Cross said: "We'll make it easier to report mistakes without filling out pages of paperwork."

Health Secretary pledges inquiry into Scottish blood contamination scandal

More in from A Diary of Injustice in Scotland as Peter Cherbi reports on the 'pledge' of SNP Deputy leader & Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon to give the victims of the Hep C contaminated blood products used by the NHS in Scotland an inquiry at last into what happened and why these people were made to suffer, some obviously recevinging a death sentence because of actions by the NHS.

Scottish Executive Health Secretary pledges inquiry into contaminated blood products

As the culture of injustice in Scotland beings to be broken down, ever so slowly, our new Health Secretary & SNP Deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon, made a personal pledge there would be a public inquiry into how people were infected with Hepatitis C through contaminated blood products used on the NHS.

I have covered this issue before here : Blood infections Inquiry to be held as Executive challenged to clean up the injustices of the past

If you would like to learn more about the tainted blood products scandal campaign, please visit their website here : http://www.taintedblood.info

You can also find out more details and the petition calling for Westminster to hold a public inquiry into the matter here : http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/PublicInquiry

Many eyes will be on how the SNP led Executive handle this inquiry .. for instance, who will be appointed ? What powers will it be given ? How unrestricted a remit will it really have ? Will the victims finally get justice for the incredible injustice which was done to them ?

The traditional culture of inquiry in Scotland has been to fudge the issues, not blame anyone in particular, avoid the mention of negligence , and rely on secrecy to let those off the hook who were guilty of omission, dereliction of duty, negligence, or even criminal cover up - which may well be the case here, given the quantities of documentary evidence & records destroyed ...

Will the SNP break with that culture of the past fiddles where those who were guilty were protected ? or will the victims of this terrible scandal be given the inquiry they and Scotland truly deserves ? I hope so. It's about time something was done for the people who have suffered in this scandal and hats off to Ms Sturgeon for taking this step. Now it's time for action, accountability, transparency & honesty for the victims of the tainted blood products scandal.

My very best regards to all of those, particularly the long suffering victims, who campaigned for this inquiry and best wishes for a successful outcome.

Pay attention to this please Cabinet Secretary of Justice Mr Kenny MacAskill - there are victims of injustice in the justice system who deserve a similar inquiry pledge - from YOU.

Following report from the Herald newspaper :

Campaigners hail blood products inquiry pledge

WILLIAM TINNING August 17 2007

Campaigners yesterday welcomed a personal pledge from Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon of a public inquiry into how people were infected with hepatitis C through contaminated blood products.

The SNP deputy leader made her pledge yesterday after meeting campaigners at the Scottish Executive's offices in Glasgow.

The inquiry was a manifesto commitment of the Scottish National Party. It was announced shortly after the SNP took office that the new executive would hold a Scottish inquiry.

Ministers will await the outcome of the Archer inquiry in England and Wales into Hepatitis C and HIV infections from NHS blood supplies, before deciding on the scope and remit of the Scottish investigation.

Following yesterday's meeting Philip Dolan, chairman of the Scottish Haemophilia Group, who has been part of an eight-year campaign for a Scottish inquiry, said: "The speed and recognition of the need for this inquiry is a matter for which Nicola Sturgeon should be congratulated.

"We look forward to working with her in helping with the remit."

Gary Kelly, 43, from Glasgow, beat leukaemia as a young man only to find out later that he had been given contaminated blood during a bone marrow transplant operation in 1986 which condemned him to live with HIV for the rest of his life. Mr Kelly, is recovering from his fourth heart attack which he blamed on anti-viral drugs he has been forced to take since being contaminated.

He said: "Hopefully sufferers like myself will at last learn how we became infected and why the government at Westminster ignored warnings from groups, including the World Health Organisation and the United Nations, about the potential dangers of importing infected blood products."

Frank Maguire, of Thompsons solicitors, which represents hundreds of the victims and their families, said many had died during the campaign for an inquiry.

However, he added: "The survivors and the relatives of those who have died have remained committed to forcing a public inquiry. At last they have the real prospect of finding out the truth.

"For them it's not about compensation. It's about knowing why it happened, what could have been done to prevent it, and what lessons have been learned to prevent it happening again."

Hundreds of people in Scotland, including haemophilia sufferers and other patients, were given contaminated blood in the 1970s and 1980s. However, the previous administration resisted calls from victims and their families for a public inquiry.

The executive yesterday said a public inquiry in Scotland to find out why people were infected with hepatitis through NHS treatment was "the best way forward".