Patient Stories

Delivering the best possible care and treatment to our patients is what we aim to do every day.

Hearing about your experience of care is really helpful to us, not only so that we can share your feedback with our teams, but so that we can learn and improve too.

Care Opinion is an online platform where you can share your experience about the care you or your loved ones have received.

Since we started using Care Opinion, we have received 955 stories - and we are extremely grateful to everyone who has taken the time to share their experience.

In a recent story, our Wellbeing Service was praised for helping someone to overcome the problems they were facing mentally. The person stated that when they first reached out to Karen in our Wellbeing Service for telephone counselling, they were “suffering a total emotional collapse” and “couldn’t concentrate or get out of the cycle of reliving traumatic events”. Regarding Karen’s support, they said: “She did a lot of work with me on building up self-worth, strengthening my relationship with other people to gain support and emotional connection with them, and to avoid toxic situations at home which just pulled me down”. As a result, the person has felt “much stronger”.

In another story, a patient’s relative spoke about the treatment their sister received from the Learning Disability Liaison Team when attending the BGH for an ultrasound scan. They said: “Alan and the other staff members went above and beyond their roles, doing everything they could to put my sister at ease.” They went on to say that although their sister was “very anxious”, she “dealt with it very well, and the calming environment and experience of the staff shone through”. They concluded by saying “I am so grateful that this experience was positive for her as it bodes well for any future procedure she may need. A massive thank you to Alan and the team for all their efforts, I can’t praise them enough – such an excellent and necessary service for people with Learning Disabilities.”

The Emergency Department also received positive feedback, due to the “excellent nurse” a family member met when attending the department with their mother. They said they had “never experienced care like we did with her” and that “her bedside manner was second to none” and “nothing was too much to ask”. The person added “this nurse made our experience better than what we imagined it could have been” and then thanked the rest of the team in our Emergency Department.

Sarah Horan, Director of Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professionals at NHS Borders, said: “Receiving such heartfelt and positive feedback from our patients has a constructive and beneficial effect on staff morale. It is important that we learn from our patient experiences, both good and bad. Having an open and honest conversation with patients enables us to take direct action so please, if you can, take the time to give us your feedback at www.careopinion.org.uk.”