Patient Experience Newsletter | North Bristol NHS Trust

Welcome

Hello, I’m Kerry, the new Head of Patient Experience. I will be here whilst Emily is away. It's an honour to join such an amazing team of dedicated people who are committed to putting patients, carers and families at the heart of everything we do. I'm excited to be part of this journey with you and to support you in continuing to achieve great work in all aspects of patient and carer experience - listening to feedback, collaborating and focusing on what really matters to people in our communities.

We have a lot coming up this spring including national Patient Experience Week at the end of April and national Volunteers Week at the start of June. We have our first Carers Awareness Training Session, Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month and more! From April we will be sharing all our Patient Experience social media content under one account. Make sure you are following: NBT Patient Experience Team (@NBTPatient) / X and North Bristol NHS Trust (@north_bristol_nhs) • Instagram photos and videos

Kerry Than, Head of Patient Experience

Volunteer Services

Bwalya Treasure, Volunteer Operational Lead
Kat Tudor-Thomas, Volunteer Strategic Lead

It’s been an exciting few months, from our wonderful League of Friends funding the purchase of dedicated Carers Chairs, to our volunteers taking part in Learning Disability training. We have also been finalising our Volunteer Services Strategy for the next three years. With a huge amount of input, we will be focusing on ensuring our volunteer offer is welcoming to all. We are excited to launch this.

We are also looking forward to celebrating Volunteers Week at the beginning of June. We are lucky enough to have two UWE photography students doing a volunteer placement with us and taking photos of lots of different volunteers. These photos will form an exhibition in the Brunel building launching during Volunteers Week. This will be a chance to celebrate everything so far, whilst also looking ahead to the next three years!

Guest feature

Ingrid Barker, Group Chair for NBT and UHBW

A head and shoulders photo of Ingrid looking at the camera.

It was a pleasure to spend some time with the Patient and Carer Partnership Group recently. We discussed how we can support, amplify and act on the voices of the people we serve as we form our Group with UHBW and begin reshaping some of our clinical services under our Joint Clinical Strategy.

The group has championed for patients for over 11 years and they help us break down barriers and make improvements. We celebrated all their achievements so far and how we will enhance this going forward.

It is key, as with everything we do, we ensure we are listening to the people we serve and carers and this group along with our other feedback and outreach, helps to ensure we are moving in the right direction.

Thank you to all our volunteers, experts by experience and carers who support us in delivering an outstanding experience.

Fresh Arts

Art on wards

Donna Baber, Fresh Arts Manager

In summer 2024, Fresh Arts commissioned Jennifer Mills, a visual artist who works with collage and sewing, and Claire Williamson, a creative writer and poet, to collaborate with patients, visitors, and staff on a series of workshops. The aim was to create inspiring and healing artwork for individual bedrooms on ward 26A.

Themes began to emerge around calming images that can soothe patients; these included a lighthouse, water, beach, and park scenes. Jennifer created four sample images and Claire asked staff to create original words to pair with the images to make each final design unique. In addition to these patient-focused designs, two further artworks were created for the staff rest room which incorporate imagery and text that celebrate the team’s work and culture.

The artworks were installed in January 2025. Sonia, a patient on the ward, was delighted that the artwork was installed while she was there. She said, “it was an utter joy for me to have the artwork installed in my room. I now have a picture of the beach; the colours of the sea, the sky, the sand are all my favourite colours. I’m using it for meditation and visualisation to help heal and get better. It incorporates everything that is ‘me’ and that would be the place that I would go to; the beach is my happy place. It really is so special to me. It couldn’t have been better timing and it has been a lifeline.”

Photo: First Avenue Photography

Patient Feedback & Engagement

Hearing all voices

Troy Crompton, Patient Experience Manager

Whilst we have many ways patients can provide feedback such as the Friends and Family Test (FFT), the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS), complaints and other surveys, we also actively engage with patients to ensure we speak to and hear all voices.

A few areas we have been focusing on recently include;

outreach with our Gypsy, Roma, Traveller communities including bringing a patient story video to Trust board of their experiences
patient conversations on wards and over the phone, recent focus on speaking to people with a learning disability and/or autism
gaining feedback on access from people experiencing homelessness
outreach to local visual loss groups with a survey on our work so far
understanding the experiences of those who do not speak English

The feedback and insights are shared with the respective areas and steering groups to shape and drive improvements to patient and carer experience.

Spiritual, Pastoral and Religious Care (SPaRC)

Chaplaincy Volunteers Training Course

Mack Kholowa, Team Chaplain

One of our aims for 2025 is to be more inclusive and diverse in our volunteer recruitment. Supported by the chaplaincy team, I (Mack Kholowa), ran a 4-week SPaRC training course in January and February. This was attended by nine new volunteers, all from a range of faith, cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

In March, the volunteers will undertake accompanied ward visits for 3 weeks where they shadow a chaplain and are then observed and supported in their own role. The Volunteers have been allocated to visit Elgar 1, Elgar 2, 25A ,27A, 28B, 6B and Rosa Burden wards. We hope volunteers will start their roles in April 2025.

The SPaRC Chaplaincy team is hopeful that the new volunteers will support our commitment to providing the best patient experience. By having a wide range of volunteers this will help us support all our patients.