Forum Interactive

Catch My Eye: exploring the experience of ‘carers’ and ‘cared for’ in health/social care settings

Posted by Esther at 9.06am on 16 June 2009

A priority across all health & social care settings in the UK is to bring the experience of service users to the forefront of service evaluation and development. In Scotland within health care this is supported by a campaign led by NHS Education for Scotland and NHS Quality Improvement Scotland called Little Things Make a Big Difference.

Forum Interactive is contributing various plays, stories and talking heads to the repository of resources available to staff in NHS Scotland (available in July). These resources will also be available to the general public and to staff working in social care settings (e.g care homes). Facilitation notes will be available to guide staff (and internal facilitators) in using the materials to generate discussion, understanding and action. Catch My Eye is one of the resource materials that will be available.

Catch My Eye explores the experience, often reported by visitors to hospital, of trying to find a knowledgeable member of staff from whom they can get information about their loved one. One woman, when describing her failed attempts to catch the attention of staff, summed up her bewilderment by asking “are they trained not to look?” This question became the starting point for the play.

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The play presents a failure of contact between two worlds. It is designed to be listened to with your eyes closed. What do you think? Please share your responses with me here.

You can download a copy of the facilitation notes and script by following these links.

Click here for more information about different ways of telling the stories of patients,visitors and staff.

We work across a range of themes within the health & social care sectors, click here for more information about this or contact me.

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