Feedback - the talk of the Annual Members' Meeting

Service users and their families are helping us to improve the ways we listen and respond to feedback

The Trust is set to develop the ways it listens and responds to feedback from service users and their families following a ‘big conversation’ with service users, carers, members, staff and third sector partners last week.

The conversation took place at this year’s Annual Members’ Meeting, which was held on Tuesday 19 September at the Marriott Hotel in Leeds.

The session included real stories from service users and carers, who described how they had experienced the Trust’s values – integrity, simplicity and caring – and how they had used existing feedback channels to make their voice heard. Guests were invited to share their own experiences before discussing ideas and suggestions for change.

Among the ideas, which were captured by illustrator Tom Bailey from the Arts and Minds Network, was to include information about how to give feedback on appointment letters and investing in electronic channels so that feedback can be given and received instantly.

Chair of the Trust, Professor Sue Proctor, said: “Our service users and carers are at the heart of everything we do. Everyone who comes into contact with our Trust can expect to be treated with dignity and respect, and we work with our partners to offer service users a choice of interventions, treatments and joined up care which aims to meet their particular needs.

“It’s so important that we provide real and significant opportunities to talk to us, so we can listen, hear and respond. We need to know when we get it right, and when we don’t. Only by doing this can we continuously improve what we do.

“A written report on the comments, ideas and suggestions we heard at the ‘big conversation’ will go to the Council of Governors for discussion in November and will be placed on our website. We will discuss how this work fits into the Trust Quality Strategy so that it becomes a core part of our work, not simply an ‘add-on’”.

The event was also an opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the work of the Trust, and featured presentations from our Chief Executive, Dr Sara Munro, Chief Financial Officer, Dawn Hanwell, and our Lead Governor, Steve Howarth about our achievements and challenges over 2016/2017. Members also took part in a question and answer session with the Board, and formally received the annual report and accounts.

Read our Annual Review for 2016-17.

Watch the first part of the day, the Annual General Meeting, on a video below.