Feedback as a Gift: Insights into the Women and Newborn Health Service (WNHS)

You can read the full Women and Newborn Health Service (WNHS) case study: here

Delaney Gibbons’ first interaction with the Women and Newborn Health Service (WNHS) was not upon her being hired in her current role as the Director of Safety and Quality. “I actually had both of my children at King Edward Memorial Hospital,” Delaney informs me as we discuss her work, “so I do have that perspective of having been a consumer of this health service before I worked here”.

Chatting on a recent afternoon, Delaney is walking me through her daily tasks of managing the consumer engagement space for the many WNHS patients who pass through their doors each year - a group she herself was once part of. “A big part of this role is being across and accountable for the way that we manage patients, compliments and complaints,” she says. A huge portion of this is through integrating all the feedback systems which coinhabit hospital settings. By ensuring these are all utilised and intertwined with one another, Delaney explains to me that it’s “so we're not siloed in the way we operate”.

One of these such systems is Care Opinion.

When Delaney started in her position nearly two years ago, responding to Care Opinion was decentralised. Stories from the platform were tasked to the local areas, to colleagues who were juggling responding online alongside clinical responsibilities. “We want it to be meaningful to staff on the front line,” she says, “but we also want to ensure that there is a level of consistency and timeliness that is much easier for a desk-based person to do than a clinical leader”. As a result, WNHS made the decision to change how Care Opinion was approached from an organisational perspective so that it instead sits within the consumer liaison space where it is centrally managed. By incorporating Care Opinion into their feedback streams, the WNHS has made a concerted effort to prioritise the platform. “It’s been here for a long time,” Delaney concludes, “but we've made sure that we've kept it a priority.”

Asking for feedback

Learning how to ask for feedback can often be a barrier for healthcare workers, so much so that our counterparts in the UK have even hosted a webinar addressing this issue specifically. However, the staff at the WNHS have gone to innovative lengths in order to receive feedback from their patients. Delaney describes to me one such method that she has seen her staff implement. “I went into our visiting midwifery service office,” she says, “and their ID badges had a QR code for our ‘Contact Us’ page on our website, which has the links to Care Opinion and the consumer liaison, all the different consumer feedback avenues.” Delaney continues to tell me that this solution was achieved via a bottom-up approach, rather than a top-down directive. This not only ensures that access to feedback is readily accessible and visible to their patients, but it also fosters a culture that is encouraging of consumer engagement.

Positive feedback

WNHS has integrated a thoughtful system for celebrating positive feedback, creating meaningful moments of recognition for staff. One of the standout methods they’ve developed is the use of “Opinion Hero” certificates which are co-signed by Delaney and the relevant Co-Director, and printed on the back is the actual patient story that inspired the recognition. “It gives staff something tangible, a physical thank you they can hold onto,” Delaney explains, noting how it lets them reflect on their impact and add a personal touch to their portfolios.

Another approach she describes arose from the work of one of the midwifery unit managers who created a Microsoft Teams channel that staff can share and celebrate positive feedback. Delaney tells me that many compliments are posted there, and the team members are quick to jump in with thumbs-ups, hearts, and supportive comments. Delaney says, “it's just gorgeous to see that in addition to the patient’s recognition, you have then all of the staff members loving and thumbs upping and really celebrating each other as those posts go through”.

Challenges

For Delaney, one of the trickiest parts of using Care Opinion lies in responding to the more challenging stories. “When we read a tough story, our first instinct is to reach out, to acknowledge the distress caused and offer a personal connection,” she tells me, “but we have to respect the consumer’s choice to remain anonymous on the platform. It’s their story, and we want them to know they can come to us whenever they feel ready.” Delaney acknowledges the ideal would be a world where patients felt comfortable coming directly to the service to discuss their concerns - but she understands that there are times where an external space offers a unique sense of agency for patients.

The challenge, she explains, is in striking a balance between validating a patient’s experience whilst also not undermining staff who are often doing their best under difficult circumstances. “It’s crucial for patients to feel heard,” she says, “but we also need to support our staff, ensuring they’re working in environments that allow them to deliver the standard of care they aim to provide.” This balance, Delaney believes, is central to fostering a culture of honesty and accountability. “No one goes to work to provide bad care,” Delaney reflects, “and when we have happy staff, we have happy patients.”

Responding to stories

Delaney describes her approach to responding to Care Opinion feedback with a clear priority: warmth. “I want people to know there’s a real person on the other side, someone who genuinely cares about their story,” she tells me. Building that human connection, she believes, is key to creating a relationship with patients right from the response. For positive feedback, Delaney is especially mindful of celebrating the staff that patients mention: “If someone names ten staff members, I’m going to acknowledge all ten in my response,” she says.

For more challenging feedback, Delaney takes care to acknowledge that the experience didn’t meet the service’s standards, inviting the patient to reach out for a more personal conversation if they’re comfortable doing so. She’s equally committed to ensuring that, even if a patient chooses to remain anonymous, their story still informs change. “It’s not a matter of ‘call us if you want things to improve,’” she explains. “We take what they’ve shared and work to make things better regardless, but the details help us strengthen that review.” Timeliness is also essential: “Our goal is always a two-business-day turnaround, and especially if the feedback is distressing, we respond as quickly as possible. We know how hard it must be to write out those experiences, so they deserve a prompt, human response.”

Feedback as a gift

As I sat listening, perhaps the greatest lesson I took from Delaney was her view of patient feedback as more than just data. To her, and to the Women and Newborn Health Service, it’s a gift - a powerful offering that enables the service to evolve. “It’s all well and good to apologise for distress and acknowledge things didn’t go well,” she says, “but if we don’t act on it, it’s a missed opportunity.”

This gift, as Delaney describes, is something the Women and Newborn Health Service takes seriously. “When our patients tell us about their care,” she says, “we can acknowledge, we can apologise, we can hear them, but it’s tokenistic if we don’t make change.” Feedback, especially when it reflects a tough experience, is valued not just for the story it tells but for the chance it provides to create lasting improvement. Each story serves as a gentle nudge to keep striving toward a better standard of care.

“A good clinical outcome does not necessarily mean a great experience,” she adds, reflecting on how these gifts from patients guide them to see beyond clinical success to the entire journey of care. Delaney explains how this philosophy shapes the culture at WNHS, ensuring that feedback doesn’t sit in isolation but instead forms part of a loop where commitments are turned into action. “If it matters enough to one patient to reach out and share that experience, there are other patients who will be having the same experience,” she says.

For Delaney, the gift of feedback is a continuous conversation, a dialogue that helps shape a kinder, more compassionate system. “We really owe it to them and to future patients to make changes,” she says. In receiving this gift, WNHS is committed not only to listening but to learning and evolving, creating an environment where every story shared helps build a better experience for all.

Image courtesy of the Women and Newborn Health Service