Healthcare charity Picker hosts inaugural care symposium

Healthcare charity Picker hosts inaugural care symposium

INTERNATIONAL healthcare charity Picker has shared the insights from its inaugural care symposium to further help improve patient-centred care.

Picker partnered with the Point of Care Foundation to host the Care Experience Symposium which brought together health and care practitioners and staff, patients and carers with lived experience, charity representatives, and members of the public.

The symposium aimed to understand, evaluate, and discuss ways to improve people’s experiences of receiving and providing medical care in England by harnessing data and personal experiences.

The event consisted of a variety of keynote speeches, open-space discussions and workshops. Speakers included Dr Tessa Richards, senior editor at The BMJ, Dr Liz O’Riordan, Hanan L’Estrange-Snowden, Head of Hospital Patient Experience and Engagement at Barts Health NHS Trust and James Munro, CEO of Care Opinion as well as representatives from both Picker and the Point of Care Foundation.

Picker has now shared its findings from the event and has hailed it as a ‘great success’.

Key themes that were highlighted by both speakers and attendees were the need to see ‘the person, not the patient’, the importance of welcoming the involvement of families in treatment, and the power of storytelling and the value of data.

Contributions from people with lived experience spoke to how vital these things are to humanising care. There was a high volume of examples of organisations using patient and staff experience data to drive meaningful improvement – illustrating that both collective and individual experiences have a crucial role in understanding and improving care.

Feedback from attendees at the event was overwhelmingly positive, with over 97% of respondents confirming they were satisfied or very satisfied with the event as a whole and over 95% stating they were likely to recommend it to a colleague or contact.

Following the success of the event and the positive feedback received, Picker has confirmed its plans to host the event again in the coming years with the hope of building on the foundations laid out this year.

Chris Graham, Picker CEO said:

“Our care experience symposium co-hosted with the team at the Point of Care Foundation, sought to analyse the links between the experiences of patients, their families, and the staff that work in healthcare.

“We wanted to take a holistic look at experiences of care and to consider how stories and data alike can drive positive, lasting change.

“Through workshops, keynote speeches, and open discussion, we wanted the symposium to influence, inspire, and empower attendees to help them think radically about improving the way we care and are cared for. The result was a truly unique event in the healthcare space that generated open, honest, and thought-provoking conversations in an inclusive environment.”

This sentiment was echoed in the feedback by many of the attendees, with one respondent describing it as ‘a rare chance to dive deep into the techniques, ethics, and nuance of storytelling in healthcare’. Another stated that ‘the whole day was full of interest. I came away feeling more positive about making change in the NHS than I have done for sometime.’

Bev Fitzsimons, CEO of the Point of Care Foundation said:

“The symposium really explored the connection between the experiences of staff and people using services, and between quantitative and qualitative methods in growing our understanding of what matters to people and what shapes their experiences.

“It was no ordinary conference, and we all came away inspired to do more. The energy and enthusiasm of participants left us optimistic about our continued mission to make care more human.”

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