ERS Medical Stakeholder Engagement Forum
Early in December 2020, we ran our first Stakeholder Engagement Forum, held virtually and based around our service in Homerton. We brought together representatives from our team, local CCG and NHS trusts, Age UK and Healthwatch. Our plan is to run more Stakeholder Engagement Forums in the future, and here’s an insight into how they work.
Aims and objectives
The aim of the Homerton Stakeholder Engagement Forum was to:
- Provide an open and transparent update on ERS Medical’s Non-Emergency Patient Transport service in Homerton.
- Provide the opportunity to answer questions from a cross-section of stakeholders.
- Receive feedback from stakeholders to improve the quality and performance of our services.
Our purpose is to provide a reliable, caring service that puts people at the heart of everything we do; we want to make sure we are getting this right. Working with a wide range of stakeholders with feedback and open discussion helps us to continually improve.
Our Managing Director, Head of Care Standards and Senior Operations Manager for the region were joined by representatives from Homerton NHS Trust, Healthwatch, Age UK and the local authority Strategic Commissioner for Older People & Long-Term Conditions.
Who we are and what we do
The first part of the Stakeholder Engagement Forum set out to provide an insight into our purpose and how we work. Our Managing Director Andrew Pooley began the session, sharing our background, operational model and our overall mission to put people at the centre of everything we do.
Gary Brown, our Senior Operations Manager in the South, explained the local operational setup, what progress has been made over the duration of the contract, and which improvements have been made, along with details on staffing and training. He also shared our contractual KPIs and background on the working in partnership with the Homerton NHS Trust during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our final update focused on quality metrics, which included an overview of patient experience surveys, incidents and complaints across a 12-month period. Simon Smith, Head of Care Standards, also showed the Homerton NHS Trust’s contribution to our most recent set of Quality Accounts.
Stakeholder feedback
The second part of the Stakeholder Engagement Forum was centered on feedback. Stakeholders were given the opportunity to ask written questions in advance and to ask questions in person during the session. We received a broad range of questions, from understanding more about our training to how we apply social distancing on Ambulances.
The majority of questions were answered in the session and a couple of suggestions were taken away to be followed up separately. Following the stakeholder forum, participants received a copy of the meeting minutes with detailed responses to all the questions asked and an invite to ask further questions if needed.
Both the team at ERS Medical and our participants felt the Stakeholder Engagement Forum was a great success. We appreciated the opportunity to share more about who we are and what we do, and the feedback we received will help us to improve our service. Already, we can implement a number of suggestions from the forum.
If you have any questions about our Stakeholder Engagement Forum please get in touch.
