Our response to Covid-19: Learning from your feedback
The NHS in Kent and Medway has been working hard during lockdown and the coronavirus pandemic to keep one another safe and care for those who needed our services.
To respond quickly and at scale to an emergency situation unlike anything we had experienced before, we had to make significant changes. While some services were temporarily paused in response to the pandemic, for those that weren’t, it meant a new way of delivering care.
Many people in Kent and Medway had to adapt to services going online, to different contact methods and to different routines and practices. Clinicians and colleagues have also adapted to new practices, including more use of technology and being redeployed into different roles to support the emergency response.
As lockdown eases, we are restarting health services which had to be paused. The priority is to restart urgent services where delays have the greatest impact on patients.
To help health and care leaders make decisions about the possible benefits of these changes, it is essential we find out what colleagues, clinicians, patients and local communities think about how services are being delivered now and the lessons we have learned from delivering care during the pandemic.
To do this, we ran an online survey during June. To support people who are unable to complete the survey online, we also offered a phone service for people to call and complete the survey. If you were unable to complete the survey, please feel free to send any comments you may have about your recent experience of using NHS service to kmccg.engage@nhs.net
We are having discussions with local patient groups and with communities of interest with the help of our voluntary and community sector (VCS) partners such as Healthwatch, Engage Kent and Medway Voluntary Action – who are all completing complementary pieces of work.
We are also running a survey with NHS colleagues working with our community, mental health and hospital trusts and GP practices. Each NHS trust is looking closely at how they can best deliver safe and effective services while the coronavirus is still here.
The Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group Engagement Team is conducting a series of interviews with clinicians and a range of colleagues, our public sector partners in local authorities and our VCS partners; who have been so vital in supporting those most vulnerable in our communities during the pandemic.
These actions mark the start of an evaluation process for us to learn what works well for colleagues, patients and local communities, and what needs improving so we can maintain the flexible way of working which has helped the NHS and its partners respond to the pandemic.
The feedback will support the CCG and our partners to make evidence-based decisions on our work during the pandemic. We will engage with colleagues, stakeholders, patients and members of the public when making decisions which may have a long-term impact on services.