Patient focus - other support

Guidance and tools

This section includes resources which can help with the understanding of and implementation of particular aspects of policy, and support processes for improving care.

This is not a comprehensive listing. If there are any tools you are using in your workplace which you feel should be included here, please let us know. The documents are listed alphabetically by title.

You may also find relevant guidance and tools in RCN publications and RCN products and services.

Some of the resources on this page are in PDF format - see how to access PDF files.

Health care environment

Essence of Care 2010
Essence of Care  provides a structured and patient-centred approach to identifying best practice and setting standards for fundamental aspects of care, and highlights the importance of seeking patient and carer opinion. It acts as a tool for sharing and comparing practice, for developing action plans for improvement and audit, and for identifying education and training needs. The 12 areas, each of which has its own benchmarks, are: bladder, bowel and continence care; the care environment; communication; food and drink; personal hygiene; prevention and management of pain; prevention and management of pressure ulcers; health and well-being; record-keeping; respect and dignity; safety and self care.

Enhancing the healing environment (EHE)
The King's Fund's Enhancing the Healing Environment (EHE) programme encourages and enables nurse-led teams to work in partnership with patients to improve the environment in which they deliver care. 

Good places, better health
This Scottish Implementation Plan is about responding to the challenges faced when creating safe and positive environments which nurture better and more equal health and wellbeing.

Patient Environment Action Teams (PEAT) Programme
PEAT is a benchmarking tool to ensure improvements are made in the non-clinical aspects of patient care including environment, food, privacy and dignity. In 2011 the management of PEAT transferred to the NHS Information Centre.

Patient experience

Evolving practice
Evolving practice is provided by the Scottish Health Council. The website has a database of case studies, experiences and ideas which have involved people in shaping and influencing local services. It contains real-life examples of Scotland's commitment to improving services by engaging with patients, carers and communities.

Experience-based co-design
This online tool aims to help healthcare staff create effective patient-based quality improvement initiatives. The package is split into 16 sub-sections covering topics such as developing project plans, recruiting patients and evaluating success. Within each of these, general guidance is supported by ‘key points’ sections and expert video tutorials.

Experience Based Design
Developed by the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, Experienced Based Design (EBD) is a new way of bringing patients and staff together to share the role of improving care and re-designing services. There are also links to guidance and tools.

Experience Matters
An online community and discussion forum for those working in patient experience created by the iWantGreatCare team. It works as an email discussion board where comments can be submitted by email.

Improving Patients Experience Factsheets
Factsheets from the Picker Institute which are designed to help healthcare organisations share approaches to improving patient care. Each issue of Improving Patients Experience focuses on a specific theme and features examples of good practice which have made a real difference to patients.

Improving the patient experience (2009)
This Department of Health publication contains 47 best practice case studies, advice and guidance on how to improve the environment of care in mental health and learning disabilities as part of The King's Fund's Enhancing the Healing Environment (EHE) programme in England.

Kissing It Better
This website offers an easy-to-use, on-line ‘suggestion box’ of what has been shown by experience to work in healthcare. The web site can be used free of charge by patients, carers and health professionals. Good ideas for transforming the lives of patients are quickly and easily shared.

Little things make a big difference: Valuing the patient experience
This resource has been developed by NHS Education for Scotland for frontline NHS staff. It is designed to act as a gateway for staff to support the enhancement of patient experience. It provides access to audio and video resources and key documents and tools to support continuous professional development or to be used as a resource with patients and carers.

Patient Experience First Steps Diagnostic Tool
The Department of Health has developed a diagnostic tool to aid understanding of data from the national patient survey programme. The overall aim of the tool is to help organisations identify areas where they can improve the experience of patients. 

Patient Voices
The Patient Voices programme captures digital stories from patients, carers and clinicians. The clips are short digital stories combining video, audio, still images and music. The stories are the result of commissions from a range institutions including NHS Connecting for Health, the Heart Improvement Programme and the Royal College of Nursing Institute (RCNI).

Picker Institute: Good Practice Database
This Picker Institute database is a collection of good practice examples which have improved the patient experience. The examples included are designed to be practical, inexpensive and easy to implement.

Point of care programme
This King's Fund programme aims to transform patients' experience of care in hospital. The goal is to enable health care staff in hospitals to deliver the quality of care they would want for themselves and their own families.

The Patient Experience
This is a set of discussion forums where patients connect, express their views and share valuable experiences on the subjects of medicine and healthcare. The forums are free and open to all.

Transforming patient experience
This resource is for people with designated responsibility for improving patient experience – both as providers of services and as commissioners. The content includes research evidence, stories from patients and staff and many examples of innovative ideas. It also illustrates a range of well-tested techniques to help you work more closely with patients to understand their experience and use it to improve services.

Understanding detailed patient experience data: toolkits for analysts (2009)
This tool from the Department of Health aims to help organisations identify areas where they can improve the experience of patients.

Patient feedback

Understanding what matters: A guide to using patient feedback to transform care (2009)
This Department of Health guide sets out best practice in terms of collecting, analysing and using patient feedback to transform services. It also includes examples of how the NHS is already using feedback from patients to get results.

Using patient feedback: a practical toolkit (2009)
A guide from the Picker Institute to help health care professionals and patients to understand and act on patient feedback.

Patient and public involvement

Invest in engagement
A resource from Picker Institute Europe designed for NHS commissioners and providers, and anyone with an interest in patient and public engagement (PPE). It provides an evidence review of the effectiveness of PPE in health and evidence-based recommendations for investing in engagement. Alongside the evidence, Invest in Engagement offers other resources including case studies, links to sources of help and policy guidance.

Learning to Improve: Involving patients
Produced jointly by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) this resource can be used in three ways; as a programme of learning, a reference source and a training resource. Involving patients is one of six learning units.

Participation Toolkit
This toolkit has been compiled to support NHS staff in delivering Patient Focus and Public Involvement. It offers a number of tried and tested tools along with some more recently developed approaches.

Patient-centred care
This web page from the Health Foundation brings together news, case studies, features, publications and a range of other relevant material on person-centred care.

Patient and Public Involvement. Toolkit for staff (PDF 295.1KB)
This toolkit for patient and public involvement (PPI) has been developed by Leicester City Primary Care Trust to provide guidance to managers and staff on how to effectively involve patients and the public in health care planning and delivery.

Patient Experience. Public and Patient Involvement in NHS Wales: Good practice
This Welsh Assembly Government web page brings together the many aspects of Public and Patient Involvement that are taking place. Useful examples of good practice are captured here.

Signposts: A practical guide to public and patient involvement in Wales (PDF 1.03MB)
This guide provides information and advice to NHS organisations about how to develop work in public and patient involvement and how to meet the performance management requirements of the National Assembly for Wales as outlined in the NHS Plan Improving Health in Wales.

The heart of the matter: patient and public engagement in today's NHS (2010)
This NHS Confederation report states that patient and public engagement (PPE) must become integral to the operation of every NHS organisation.

Toolkit for involving patients and the public in Lambeth PCT (PDF 1.3MB)
Lambeth Primary Care Trust (PCT) as developed this toolkit to provide guidance to managers and staff on how to effectively involve patients and public in health care planning and delivery.

Complaints

How to make a complaint about the NHS
Leaflet by Health Rights Information Scotland explaining the NHS complaints procedure in Scotland.

HSC complaints in Northern Ireland
This Citizens Advice Bureau webpage provides advice on how to make a complaint in Northern Ireland.

Listening, responding, improving: a guide to better customer care
This Department of Health guide is designed to be accessible to anyone working in health and social care organisations who is involved in receiving feedback and resolving concerns and complaints from patients, service users and their representatives.

NHS Complaints - Wales
Information from the Citizens Advice Bureau on how to make a complaint in Wales about any aspect of NHS treatment using the NHS complaints procedure.

Principles of good complaint handling
This set of principles from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman outlines the approach the Ombudsman believes public bodies should adopt when dealing with complaints.

Putting Things Right
Supporting documents on the way for dealing with complaints and concerns in Wales, including leaflets for children and leaflets in different languages.