Listening to parents to improve health visiting practice

Community Pract. 2015 May;88(5):30-3, 35.

Abstract

Listening to the "voice" of the service user is now widely accepted as central to the delivery of high quality healthcare. This paper presents an overview of the importance of service user engagement and personalised care in health visiting with a brief review of recent policy and research. A personalised approach to health visiting practice is recommended to improve service user experience and uptake of the health visiting service offer and this is considered most significant when engaging "hard to reach" groups. A project report on a service user experience strategy within the 0-19 service of a NHS Trust in England is presented which describes initiatives to develop a health visiting and school nursing service that listens to service users. A cyclical service user engagement model which incorporates continuous reviews and service reconfiguration is described with examples of service changes in response to expressed local needs.

MeSH terms

  • Community Health Nursing / standards*
  • Feedback
  • Humans
  • Nurse-Patient Relations
  • Nursing Research
  • Patient Participation*
  • Patient Satisfaction
  • Quality Improvement*
  • State Medicine
  • United Kingdom