The PHA kick-starts the 10,000 voices roadshow

The Public Health Agency (PHA) yesterday kick-started a roadshow for the ‘10,000 Voices’ project, a PHA initiative that aims to involve the public in shaping future healthcare services across Northern Ireland. Pat Cullen, Director of Nursing and Allied Health Professions at the PHA, said: “10,000 Voices is a unique project that offers people an opportunity to tell us about their experiences as a patient or as someone who has experienced the health service, and to highlight the things that were important to them which will help direct how care is delivered in Northern Ireland”.

“We want patients, families and carers to share their experiences of healthcare and how it has impacted on their lives. We will collect 10,000 stories to inform the commissioning process, enabling the delivery of better outcomes and better value for money in how services are delivered. This will be carried out using a phased approach beginning with unplanned care.”

The 10,000 Voices project reflects the ethos of Transforming Your Care, which presents a significant opportunity to fundamentally improve the quality of care for everyone in Northern Ireland and places patient experience at the heart of these reforms.

Pat continued: “The 10,000 Voices project acknowledges that patient and client contribution is fundamental to ensuring that services are commissioned to deliver better outcomes for patients, their family and carers. The project will be a powerful way of making sure that patients’ voices are heard and that improvement of services is centred on their needs.

 “The project team will run a series of roadshows throughout September in Health and Social Care (HSC) settings with support from colleagues in local HSC Trusts to raise awareness of the project. From mid-September we will be inviting people to share their experiences by completing a short survey. HSC is of interest to everyone in Northern Ireland, therefore I would urge people to take a few minutes to complete this survey and help us improve our services.”

 For more information and to see how your organisation can get involved, please see the PHA website, the survey is also available to complete at www.10000morevoices.hscni.net from mid-September 2013.