Bury Speaks Out 4,115 Ratings in 7 Days

Date published: 13 July 2011

After a TV, Radio, Newspaper and Web and Leafleting campaign in its first week, people all over Bury have responded to BURY LINK’s call for them to RATE OUR SERVICE in their thousands and yet more have visited the site to see real people’s views to help them choose.

Mr Falah Al-Khafaji, the owner of RATE OUR SERVICE’S LTD, “We have received 31,560 visitors to the site in the first week and appeared on local radio and TV. 13% of vistors then decided to leave an opinion and so in just seven days we have 4115 ratings, an average of nearly 588 people a day. It’s amazing. Bury LINk’s set us a target of 1000 so we have really out done ourselves.”

Mick Ainsworth, BURY LINks Board Director said: “We thought people would be interested to see our early figures on user satisfaction with Bury health and social Care Services. The chart below is taken from our inaugural report to Bury health and Social Care Providers.”

Mick continued: “Much of the patient experience we heard of previously was anecdotal and negative. Service users have shown us how much they value cleanliness, politeness and above all patient centred care; it looks like our Pharmacists are leading the way in customer service in our residents’ opinion”.

A spokesperson from Strachan’s Chemist, Ian Strachan heard about his services performance and said: “As the owner, I’m delighted with the score. It reflects on the values that are set within the business of customer focus and care, to put the customer first. I have excellent staff who do put the patient first and resolve problems as they happen, it’s good to know that the business values have cascaded through. I’d never heard of this system before so I can guarantee that I have not actively prompted any customers to rate us favourably. You’ve made my day”.

As previously reported, Health and Social Care leaders in the Borough have just received their first performance report using data on the system and Bury LINk’s chair is eager to receive feedback from them on his Board’s recommendations for action.

Paul Mainwaring said about this report: “We have suggested that the commissioners include a range of our performance indicators in their contract monitoring and we have also shared annonymised comments from real users.

"I was heartbroken to read of one resident who lost a loved one and felt that they were treated with total disregard for his dignity as though they were mentally unable '[His/Her] treatment and nursing care was so appalling that [his/her] ability to cope with the diagnosis vanished entirely….my late [partner] had lost the will to fight both the hospital and [his/her] medical condition'.

"This reflects the fear we have that many dissatisfied users are too scared, ill or tired to highlight poor treatment. On the other hand, my heart was lifted to read that one Bury resident whose parent was in a local nursing home felt that 'the care I received for my [parent] was beyond expectations, the home was clean, the staff were polite and respectful and nothing was too much trouble. If I needed a question answering it was answered professionally. I would recommend this home to others'.

A rater who wanted to remain anonymous said: 'I found the system really easy to use and did put a comment on the system in the hope that it goes to the service involved and its managers. My clinical care was great but it was marred by a nurse having a joke at my expense.'

Visit the site: www.burylink.org