Scotland to pilot Care Opinion website

Sun,10 August 2014
News

New platform to share experiences of social care.

People using adult social care services in Scotland will have the opportunity to share and compare their experiences when a new website, Care Opinion, launches this autumn.

The one-year pilot, supported by £102,000 of Scottish Government funding, will enable social care users, and their families, to give public feedback on their care and share their stories with others.

The independent website will complement the existing Patient Opinion website, currently used by hundreds of people a year to comment on their experiences in hospitals across the country.

Care providers registered with the site will be able to respond directly to users and use their feedback to make changes to services.

The initial pilot will cover adult care providers in two health board areas, with a view to rolling out the service across Scotland at the end of the one-year trial.

Scottish Health Secretary Alex Neil said:

“I’ve been very clear that we must continue to drive improvements in the quality and standard of care in social care settings - for example in public and private care homes and in the provision of care at home services. The launch of Care Opinion will provide a platform for improvements driven directly by feedback from patients and their families.”

Patient Opinion is a not for profit social enterprise who run independent websites that enable people to share stories about their care. On www.patientopinion.org.uk and on www.careopinion.org.uk, patients, service users, carers and their families can comment on the care they have received from health and social care services. These comments are sent directly to relevant services, who then have the opportunity to publicly respond to the feedback and say when they make a change to those services.