Humber Acute Services Programme - What Matters to You?

We Asked

What was most important to you when thinking about your care in hospital. 

Nearly 4000 people took part in this engagement exercise, either by filling in a questionnaire or taking part in a focus group.

There will be more opportunities to get involved for anyone who wasn’t able to take part this time. 

You Said

That being “seen and treated as quickly as possible” was most important.
In the questionnaire and focus group sessions, participants were asked to rank nine statements in order of importance with the option to add any further comments at the end. I am seen and treated as quickly as possible came out top in both sets of feedback. 

You also said it was very important that:
- you are kept safe and well looked after.
- there are enough staff with the right skills and experience.
- things go well for you, and you are satisfied with your care.

The order of preference varied between different groups; however, these three statements were prioritised most highly when an average was taken across the board. The three things that were consistently ranked lowest were: I am able to get there; good quality buildings and the latest equipment; and services are good value for money.

It is important to note that participants were forced to rank the statements in order of importance, so it does not mean these factors were not important at all, just less important than the others. Some comments noted that it was difficult to rank these statements and that they were all important factors to be considered. 

We asked about what matters most because we want to pay particular attention to the things people have told us are most important when we look at how we might provide services differently in the future. 

When we compare the different ways of organising our services (known as the options appraisal stage of our change process), we will look to prioritise those options which make the biggest improvements to those areas you told us were most important to you. This process of listening will continue throughout our change programme so we can continue to respond to what you are telling us is most important and take these factors into account when designing ways of providing care in the future. We are continuing to ask the What Matters to You question within all our 
engagement activities and will continue to listen to feedback. 

You said that being “seen and treated as quickly as possible” was most important.

The feedback so far tells us that we need to pay particular attention to the current challenge of long waiting lists, particularly in those services most adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. We also need our longer-term plans to ensure patients are seen and treated quickly in all services and that we design them in a way that means they can withstand any future shocks. 

You said that compassionate and caring staff meant you were happy with your care.

The most common reason given for a positive experience was linked to the staff providing the care. When planning how we provide services in the future, we need to ensure staff have time to care. We need to make sure our plans for the future make the best use of the skills, talents and experience of our workforce, including those who will make up the workforce of the future. To do this effectively we also need to make sure we involve our existing staff in the planning process so that we can capture their ideas and aspirations in what we do.

You said that poor communication and issues with car parking made your experience difficult and stressful.

Participants identified a number of areas for improvement, notably communication and accessibility, particularly in relation to car parking. We need to make sure in the future we can provide seamless care for patients irrespective of whether they are being seen by a GP, a social worker, a consultant, a therapist, a nurse or any other health and care professional. We must take the opportunity we have through this programme to build in effective communications from the outset as a fundamentally important part of providing good quality healthcare. We also need to consider when we plan services how to make them easy for people to access, thinking about all aspects of accessibility, not just distance to travel from A to B.

You told us that different people have different priorities. 

Whilst overall there was a high degree of consistency in prioritisation across all groups and cohorts of the population, there were some differences when we compared results by age or by role (for example, staff did not rank being seen and treated as quickly as possible as highly as patients or members of the public). 

We need to better understand how changes might impact different groups.

Whilst we received nearly 4000 responses to our survey, the number of responses from some groups and communities was relatively low. We want to gather more feedback from those we have not yet heard from to help us when we come to make decisions.

The communities and groups we need to hear more from include:
• Children and young people – during our engagement we only heard from three people under the age 
of 18. 
• People living within North and North East Lincolnshire – the response rate from people living on the 
south bank was significantly less than that of people living on the north bank. 
• People living in areas of high deprivation – we received a particularly low response rate from people 
living within deprived areas of North East Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire, and Hull. 
• People from diverse ethnic backgrounds - 2,432 (95.40%) of people who we engaged with identified 
as white. Only 53 (2.08%) people identified as Asian, Black, Chinese, or mixed heritage. 
• People with protected characteristics – in particular, members of the LGBTQ community, people 
living with learning difficulties, poor mental health or sensory impairment. 

We also want to understand if peoples’ priorities change.

We want to listen more to our population as we continue to develop our possible options for change. We want to understand if peoples’ priorities change when we know more about what the possible changes might be and what that will mean for them. 

We Did

Next, we will:
- ask our staff What Matters To You in a bespoke staff survey;
- listen to more children and young people to find out what they think;
- ask What Matters To You in all our other engagement on specific services;
- re-open our questionnaire and raise awareness to prompt those who have not yet responded to have their say.

The feedback and data collected throughout the 'What Matters to You' engagement programme will help us evaluate our different clinical options, and also ensure the decision-making process is fully informed by a range of views and opinions.