WRITTEN ON April 4th, 2008 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Design: Co-creation, Foundation of Trust, Power of Information, Save Time and Money, What do we want?
Picked up by the IdealGov concealed microphones at a recent CIO meeting, spoken (it would seem) by the senior responsible officer for spending £25m a year of taxpayers’ money on NHS Choices
Quite right. NHS Choices’ “voice” function promises to be more expensive and less well moderated than the existing and simple-to-use Patient Opinion. But most serious of all, it won’t be independent at all. The idea is we voluntarily voice our feedback via NHS Choices into a crown copyright publi-private partnership, so future secretaries of state can use our data to make politicised editorials and some outfit like Dr Fosters can mine it as intellectual property. Je pense pas; non, noooooon, non! Geklauten Daten? Nein Danke!
Wibbi: we applied all three core IdealGov principles in one go here. We score a quick win, we use a process of co-creation, and dig deep to build gov 2.0 on a foundation of trust. All we have to do is use the money we’re going to waste on some arm-manufacturing contractor writing a £multi-million Transport-Direct/DirectGov/BusinessLink type EU-rules procured NHS Choices/Voices clunketerium web site. Instead we could use a fifth the money to promote and roll out the creative-commons and not-for-profit Patient Opinion faster. At the very least we could remove the “planning blight” NHS Chioices/Voices casts on Patient Opinion, which works nationally already with simple clean design, exemplary tagging, moderation and flexible feedback options.
JFDDI! Desist! The senior officials know it makes sense. I think the Minister in charge is Dawn Primarolo (not Ben Bradshaw. Or Alan Johnson is top dog at health.) Gordon – have a word would you? [Thought: perhaps we could install an IdealGov-branded Middlesboro’-style talking CCTV camera in #10, so we can keep an eye on the PM and also offer him some top tips at convenient moments 24/7]
5 Responses to “Patient Opinion: you can’t fool a good SRO”
William – A shame you are so quick to criticise without facts. Have you talked to NHS about this programme?
Sorry, Mr Anon (if indeed you are the same anon as the one who posted earlier). Should have replied earlier.
My view about the unsophisticated moderation processes comes from discussing in some detail how Patient Opinion handles a whole range of issues, compared to the minimal requirements of the Healthy Choices tender. It may need to be updated.
If you are an official/company spokesman hiding behind the cloak of being Mr Anon perhaps you might explain in fuller detail how you now handle moderation. Which company does it? What do you do about malpractice allegations? What is the copyright position on comments, and who controls what use can be made of them?
The reason I’m irritable about this is that having worked out that such feedback systems are necesary abd desirable (see IdealGov c 2005) – subject to the crucial quality of their being independent – and having found Patient Opinion that provides this service in an exemplary manner I’m vexed that the controllist D’oH! should ladle out taxpayers money to some profitmaking outfit that replicates the feedback functions of an exemplary independent service by favouring its own (I was going to say feeding its own poodle…you know what I mean).
I’m angry about the waste of my taxpayer’s money. and I’m angry about the political control/bossy editorialising element and loss of independence.
I feel a team of exemplary social entrepreneurs have been kicked in the teeth by the D’oH! with disgraceful attempts at bullying by contractors bidding for the fat pile of government/taxpayer cash.
You’re welcome to tell me it’s otherwise if you know any better. But more details would be good. ou’re perfectly welcome to post articles in your own right, under a pseudonym if you prefer.
… so you are angry (again) … but have you talked to NHS Choices … ever?
I feel better about this now that Patient Opinion is able to take the Healthy Choices data and mash it up.
Liste, Messrs Anon 1 & 2 and different Anon – if you feel I should speak to NHS Choices you have but to pick up the phone. I’m on 683113 this am (Wormley exchange is 01428).
But tell me staight: is this or is it not a fatuous, poorly-contacted waste of money done in a rush for political preening purposes?
The patient voice system in use on the NHS Choices website is a 1.0 release of the software. Patient Opinions on the other hand has from what I can see been running for 3+ years. Whilst the current patient voice application on the Choices website is far from perfect we are working on improving this constantly and there will be a revised system in place in the next few months.
You mention that the Choices website is less well moderated than the Patient Opinions site? Do you have any proof to back this up? Choices uses a 3rd party moderation company who specialise in moderation and are experts in this field. They moderate many corporate websites in the UK. Comments are moderated for liability, accuracy and profanity, but other than that users can post whatever they choose and it will make it on to the site. Take a look at some of the comments and you will see that it’s not only good comments that are published.
Going forward there are some very interesting plans afoot for Choices around the voice area. Choices is barely a year old and in that time alot has been acheived. I’d give the Choices team a chance before being too critical.