The website giving a voice to patients

By Jane Elliott
Health reporter, BBC News

Chris wanted to offer constructive comments

When Chris Quigley was laid flat on his back in hospital it gave him time to reflect.

Time to look around and consider his environment - and although generally happy with it, he thought there were areas that could do with improvement.

"Lying in bed in pain inspired me to ask myself 'Could I be of any use to the hospital?'," he said.

"The hospital staff had been fantastic but I felt I could improve how the hospital, King's College Hospital, London, was run."

So Chris, the managing director of a software company, decided to set up a website - Help Us Improve King's - where fellow patients could highlight areas of concern and offer suggestions.

"I was bedbound and could not walk, so while I was lying in my bed I became frustrated as hospitals are quite a disillusioning place.

Before I became a patient I did not realise how the small things can get on top of you and really make a big difference Chris Quigley

"I wanted somewhere to air my ideas about how you could improve the hospital. I looked around the King's website but there was nowhere you could do that.

"I decided to set up a website where people can go online and give their ideas on how to improve things."

Chris hit upon the idea of harnessing the power of "crowdsourcing" - allowing others to give their views.

Feedback opportunities

Jessica Bush, head of patient and public involvement at King's, said that the hospital always appreciated feedback, but said there were already a number of ways of doing this.

"We were interested to speak to Mr Quigley regarding his development of a feedback website for patients of King's College Hospital.

"King's already actively seeks feedback from patients and visitors in a number of ways, and we make it as easy as we can for people to let us know what they think of our services.

"Later this month, we will launch a web-based feedback system in our outpatient areas, which will generate feedback from around 125,000 patients across the hospital each year. This, combined with our existing feedback mechanisms, will make it easy for every single patient at King's to give us their feedback."

Positive space

The site, which Chris set up a couple of weeks ago, is getting responses on areas like artwork, contacts, technology, flowers, patient guides and the times for tea runs.

It enables patients to share ideas and suggestions, which are then collated and organised, based on a rating and commenting system.

"The biggest thing for me was having no single point of contact. Basically because there was a big staff rotation, you never know who is caring for you," said Chris, 31, from London.

"I wanted a patient passport - documentation about who was in charge of me. I had no idea of the hospital structures and what the difference was between a sister and a nurse.

"And because I could not get out of bed, I did have to use the urine pot and once you had used them the only place to put them was on your bedside table.

Patients can share their views

"There were occasions when I was being delivered my food right next to my urine pot.

"Before I became a patient I did not realise how the small things can get on top of you and really make a big difference.

"The idea of the website is not about complaints. It is a positive space. We are interested in improvements.

"When you leave, you get an outpatients survey about how you can make a complaint, but there are thousands of brains passing through the hospital with ideas."

And he hopes other hospitals might adopt the website idea.

He said: "We think it's got great potential to help NHS service as a whole.

"Given the number of people who interact with the NHS, we're really excited about the potential for all those invaluable ideas that people have to improve service."