Last Saturday I went to the Cancer Voices conference where Macmillan hosted a listening exercise for the Department of Health (DH) with people affected by cancer.
The session was a chance for people affected by cancer to directly feed back to the DH about changes in health and social care. The audience were asked to discuss whether changes to the NHS had made it more compassionate since the Government published its response to the Francis Report last November.
The Francis Report was published after the inquiry into the care scandal at the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. The Government’s response highlighted the importance of prevention, transparency and accountability to prevent something similar happening again.
Cancer Voices preparing to discuss whether care has become more compassionate after the Mid-Staffordshire care scandal.
At the session, people affected by cancer were divided into groups, led by Macmillan facilitators (including yours truly) and asked to discuss a series of questions:
Discussion 1
Discussion 2
Key themes that came out of their discussions included the variation of care quality between services and the importance of small acts of human kindness like introducing yourself.
I’ve condensed the opinions and stories of the people affected by cancer at the session into a briefing, which has been sent to the Department of Health to provide a patient-level context to its progress report, one year on from their response to the Francis Inquiry.
You can find more pictures of the day on our twitter https://twitter.com/macmillanPA.
What would you answer to the questions we asked at the session? Let us know in the comments below.
