Feeding Back and Evaluating

To ensure that we continue to improve how we involve patients, carers and communities and learn from what they say, it is important to evaluate all Patient Focus and Public Involvement activity.

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Some organisations with approaches to evaluation include:

• Visioning Outcomes in Community Engagement (VOiCE) – a database planning and recording tool which helps individuals and organisations to design and deliver effective community engagement. VOiCE has been developed by the Scottish Community Development Centre to support the National Standards for Community Engagement. VOiCE will help to:
  • plan community engagement and service user participation
  • conduct it effectively
  • monitor and record the process
  • evaluate the outcomes.
    Using the VOiCE tool will also assist NHS organisations to evidence their achievements against the Participation Standard.
• The Evaluation Trust provides community and voluntary organisations with tools and resources which they can use to build an evaluation framework, including the Story-Dialogue Method.
• Evaluation Support Scotland works with voluntary organisations and funders so they can measure the impact of their work, providing practical support and access to resources and tools, so that organisations can build evaluation and learning into funding and policy-making processes.

Head, Heart, Carrier Bag and Dustbin Exercise

This is a light-hearted and informal method of gathering feedback on an event or project. It may succeed in engaging people where more formal methods fail.

Draw round someone on a large piece of paper and, a little way apart (possibly on the wall or floor), add large outlines of a heart, a carrier bag and a dustbin. You could also use the blank evaluation template developed by NHS Quality Improvement Scotland. Each participant should receive four post-it notes or stickers. They should be asked to affix one to each of the four drawn shapes:

• One post-it for the Head – noting down 'something I've learnt from being part of this project or event'.
• One post-it for the Heart – noting down 'something I've felt or experienced from being part of this project or event'.
• One post-it for the Carrier bag – noting down 'something I'll take away from being part of this project or event'.
• One post-it for the Dustbin – noting down 'anything I want to forget or that was not so good about being part of this project or event'.

Pros

• This method is easy and fun to do.
• It makes people think differently.
• It costs very little.
• The results are immediately visible to everyone.

Cons

• Some people may find this method frivolous.
• It is not suitable for people with low literacy levels, visual impairments and/or who do not all speak English.

Resources

• Paper, marker pens and post-it notes.