Campaign To Ensure Common-Health Across Fife

A new initiative is aimed at connecting with people in their own communities and ensuring everyone is able to go for gold when it comes to the common-health.

NHS Fife will take its patient feedback message into communities, including those traditionally considered as being more 'hard to reach', and provide them with the information they need to engage with, inform, and shape the health board. From 

Saturday 20 September, the initiative will visit various locations across the region, including Fife College, Kirkcaldy Polish Club, an interfaith gathering, and the Kingdom and Kingsgate Shopping centres. There will also be sessions at hospitals 
across Fife to advise staff members how they can feedback their experiences and opinions.

The initiative has been devised in response to the recent Listening and Learning report by Healthcare Improvement Scotland, which found that patients throughout the country are often unsure as to how they can effectively communicate with the NHS. However, engaging with NHS Fife can be done on numerous platforms, such as the independent feedback platform Patient Opinion, the patient relations team, the complaints process, or even simple one-to-one comments.

As well as the provision of patient feedback information, the common-health visits will provide an opportunity to take part in a series of health promotion activities, such as blood pressure, cholesterol, and general mini-health checks. There will also be sessions aimed at finding out how patients would prefer to communicate with NHS Fife going forward.

Commenting, Director of Nursing at NHS Fife, Professor Scott McLean, said:

"The initiative will work and engage with communities to improve health and wellbeing across Fife and highlight the numerous ways that everyone who uses the health service can communicate their experiences, both good and bad.

"If patients have the confidence to provide feedback, and they know how to channel it, this encourages them to put forward potential solutions to any issues they may perceive and, ultimately, improve the patient experience for everyone. NHS Fife 
prides itself on being an organisation that listens to its patients and values their opinions and we are actively involved in a number of initiatives, such as Patient Opinion, that demonstrate this commitment."

Professor McLean added:

"I am particularly pleased that this campaign is targeting communities that include patients who may find it difficult to feedback, through factors such as cultural or language barriers. However, all of the feedback we receive is invaluable and it is important that we receive input from all sections of society; this way we can shape the health board to truly reflect the needs of everyone living in Fife."