Toolkits that assess, describe and direct the targeted improvement of patient experiences are often designed to inform us about quality on an organisational or system level. But it is equally important to support an individual’s desire to strive for improvement in their own personal practice.

Picker’s Individual Clinician Feedback programme supports professionals to collect, interpret, publish and act on patient feedback that relates to them as an individual.

Professor Ben Bridgewater, Consultant Cardiac Surgeon at University Hospital of South Manchester, on how individual clinicians assess their own performance…

“When you ask, ‘are you a good doctor?’ The answer is, more often than not, yes.

When you ask ‘how do you know?’ answers can involve anecdotes, cards from patients, exam success, lack of complaints or a proven ability to jump through hoops.

But this information isn’t helpful to a clinician looking to learn why a patient had a high quality patient experience, or how they might identify and target areas for improvement.”

“Constantly requesting and responding to patient feedback is what makes a good doctor. But this is not something we see happening widely in health and social care.