Walsall Hospitals NHS Trust
- Improving the patient experience
- Learning from comments and concerns
- Employer supported volunteering
- Volunteer feeding schemes
Walsall Hospitals NHS Trust has a long history of listening to concerns, having been involved in a pilot of a Patients’ Advisory Service in 1995, originally set up to reduce the number of complaints. The Patients Advisory Service quickly realised that it was important to listen to what patients and their families and carers had to say, and that in many cases these comments enabled the Trust to improve overall services. In April 2001 the Trust became a Pathfinder site for the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) ahead of the governments target that all Trusts including primary Care by the year 2002 would have a PALS service.
The PALS Manager, Doreen Russell, also has responsibility for managing volunteers across the Trust, Interpreting services within the Trust and the Trust Information Centre. PALS also support patients through the complaints mechanisms so there is close liaison with the Complaints Office. Taken overall, these responsibilities mean she has a good overview of how patients experience the Trust and how services can be enhanced.
Within the PALS office there are a number of volunteers who answer the telephones, which means that people contacting PALS are more likely to get a real voice rather than the answering machine, and therefore more likely to leave a message and raise issues. Most of these volunteers are recruited from within the Trust, and are individuals who may have little patient contact. Some have identified with their line-manager through their appraisal that they would like to develop their skills in dealing with the public, and one has gone on to work as a receptionist within the Trust, using skills she has developed through volunteering in PALS.
There are plans to develop the meet and greet service for patients undergoing elective surgery, and in order to do this, Doreen plans to recruit volunteers from organisations such as large retailers where there is a strong tradition of customer care. Where these organisations also have employer supported volunteering policies, this volunteering can be seen to support individual professional development, in the same way as the Trust employees volunteering in PALS.
Patients who have problems feeding themselves often have difficulties while they’re in hospital, especially if they’re in a ward where there are several very ill patients requiring lots of medical and nursing care. Walsall Hospitals has thirty five volunteer feeders whose role is to help patients eat. These represent a wide section of the community, including several Asian male sixth formers who wish to go on to study medicine. Volunteer feeders undergo a rigorous one day training, which includes background knowledge and practising feeding each other: the schools are supportive of this initiative and allow students time to take part in the training as they see it as an important part of the young person’s career development.
Further details
Doreen Russell
Tel : (01922) 656956
Email : doreen.russell@walsallhospitals.nhs.uk
