Double award win for Knowsley

Knowsley Health & Wellbeing has been celebrating this week after scooping two national awards for its commitment to improving patient experience.

The Patient Experience Network (PEN) Awards were presented to Knowsley Health & Wellbeing for its ‘No Decision About Me, Without Me’ model, which has been developed by involving patients and the public in improving community cardiovascular disease (CVD) services in the borough.

The PEN Awards are the first and only awards programme to recognise, share and celebrate the best practice in patient experience across all aspects of healthcare.

Thanks to the involvement of patients in developing this model, Knowsley Health & Wellbeing has been able to talk to patients to understand their views on the services and make significant changes. These changes have resulted in great improvements over the two years since its launch.

Dianne Johnson, Assistant Director of Commissioning at Knowsley Health & Wellbeing, said: “We are delighted that the model has been recognised for its improvements to CVD services in the borough. Thanks to the patients involvement in improving the services we are able to deliver something which is tailored to their needs, which has been a great success.

“Just one year after the new community services launched, the borough saw significant improvements with 93 per cent of patients being seen, diagnosed and treated if needed in a single visit, 91 per cent of patients being seen within 10 working days of referral and one third more eligible patients starting rehabilitation.”

Out of eight categories, Knowsley Health & Wellbeing came out top for both ‘Communicating effectively with patient and families’ and ‘Personalisation of care’, which focus on systems and programmes aimed at encouraging dialogue between patients, families and carers and meeting their individual needs.