To help shape the transformation of our Musculoskeletal services in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin, we asked people who have used the services to share their experiences and their views about what they will look like in the future.
The feedback we received from our survey captured what was good about the services and identified opportunities where things could be improved.
People’s responses strongly reflected their positive views of our staff and how they were treated. They told us that they felt respected and listened to when they are undergoing treatment and felt involved in making decisions about their care.
The findings from the survey also suggest areas where we might be able to make improvements. These include: reducing the time between referral to treatment; providing more joined-up services; ensuring people have access to advice when they need it; and timely communications to patients.
Views about the future service model were positive. People agreed that a single referral process, multi-disciplinary triage teams, closer working between services and earlier therapy intervention will all help to deliver a better experience.
Whilst the number of responses is only a portion of the number of people accessing our services, it gives us a starting point to explore how our services can build on and learn from this insight.
For example, we are undertaking some specific engagement with our rheumatology patients. This will help us to better understand their experiences, share changes that have been made to improve the service since the survey, check the impact of those changes and together identify what else we can do.
This feedback is hugely valuable to help shape our services. We are really grateful to those who shared the survey and everyone who took the time to complete it.
For more information about the programme, please readclick latest briefing document.