NHS organisations: Policy, strategy and template documents

Patient Information Policies (click to download)

• Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
  
• South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
• Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust
  
• Guys and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
• South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (mental health Trust)

User involvement (click to download)

• Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Readers Panel example letter
• Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Terms of reference for Patient Information Group
• Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Readers panel resource evaluation form

Quality Assurance (click to download)

• Guys and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust Submission for approval of internally produced patient information
  
• Guys and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust External patient information (new submission) form

Patient Information Strategy

The foundation for any consumer health information service is an effective, comprehensive and robust information strategy. A good strategy can help you to reach your audience with high quality, relevant information that helps them to manage their condition, self-care, adopt healthy behaviours and use services appropriately. A good strategy can also help you to manage your time and resources, develop streamlined and straightforward systems, manage risks and, importantly in the current environment, provide value for money.

However, feedback from members tells us that very few of you have a complete strategy for your organisation, that there are areas that are proving challenging and that you would like to learn from the work that others are doing. One of the key challenges for many PiF members is getting board level or management support for health information.

In November 2010 PiF held a workshop in Sheffield which brought together PiF NHS members and, by providing room for networking and discussion and an opportunity to share experiences and documents, created a ‘collective wisdom’ framework for developing an information strategy.

To download the recommendations and discussion document generated as a result of the workshop, click here.

Achieving NHSLA Level 3

In December 2011, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM), a mental health service provider, passed the NHS Litigation Authority assessment at Level 3, with ‘a very good score’. SLaM is the only mental health trust to currently hold Level 3, which is the highest possible standard. Improving SLAM’s risk rating means a safer environment for patients and a lower NHSLA premium. 

PiF member Roslyn Byfield is Patient Information Manager at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and has documented her experience of achieving level 3 NHSLA and getting patient information integrated into the patient journey and is sharing it with other PiF members. You can download her article by clicking here. 

Page last edited: 03 February 2012