Have an Opinion?

The eagle eyed among you may have spotted a mention of a visit to Patient Opinion in a recent Sunday round up, but some of you may have missed it.

Some of you may be wondering what Patient Opinon and Wired In have in common – quite a lot in fact but perhaps the most important common denominator is you, us, our community. And the fact that we do have a fair number of opinions floating about the place.

I think I am right in saying that Wired In is first and foremost a virtual recovery community. We refer to treatment services indirectly – making generalised positive and negative comments – but Wired In is not really the mechanism for getting direct feedback to treatment providers.

I’d like to refer you to the comment Jason Gough made on the “Recovery Elections”: blog :

“Hi everyone,

I have been really enjoying this community blog for sometime now, and have been struck by the many heartfelt stories of recovery and treatment. Personally they have helped me to reframe my recovery in a much more positive light.

The discussions and debates around recovery, treatment and service user involvement are particularly interesting for me in my role as a service user rep and as addiction lead here at Patient Opinion.

For those of you who don’t know Patient Opinion is a not for profit social enterprise who run a national web site which takes feedback from services users, patients and carers about their experiences of treatment. These stories or experiences are then passed on to those who run services or have an interest in how services are run.

It doesn’t stop there because we also encourage those who are listening to respond to the feedback and engage in a dialogue about treatment. We know when service users are given a voice and services are listening; this involvement leads to improved services and better treatment outcomes.

As a rep this has been a really great tool in the box for engaging service users, as I am sure some of you will know the logistics of getting a group together can be quite challenging. Having an opportunity to take part and have your say even if you can’t attend local meetings or don’t feel like filling in a questionnaire is really important.

We really believe in a gift economy and people who offer their experiences of treatment are helping to change services by telling their stories. Through the power of the web we can share these “gifts” with everyone who is interested.

For example stories about someone’s experiences of care in addiction services in their local area can be heard by other services users, managers of that service, commissioners, local MPs, NTA, Care Quality Commission all of whom contribute to improving and maintaining the quality of all our services.

I am sure, I am preaching to the converted a bit here but it’s a really empowering thought that by sharing your experience of treatment so many others will benefit from it and services will be improved as a result of it.

So here comes the ask, please have a look at our site and tell us what you think, and share your story of treatment. What was good and what do you feel should change. Check out the addiction postings that are already there.

If you have anything you would like to know about who is using Patient Opinion or how you or your group may use it please email me .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).”

I can’t encourage you enough to both take a look at the site and to share your stories. If you know people who may be having issues it is a really good direction to point them in. More on this coming soon.

Michaela