Sue Downie kindly stepped in last minute to share her patient experience and business expertise with us. Sue has been using the services of four acute hospitals in recent years but has never encountered a chaplain or pastoral carer, been signposted to one or see any posters or literature that made her aware that this was a service she might use. Like many, she assumed chaplains mainly came to offer last rights to Christian patients and therefore were not there for her. We ponder how we might influence staff to refer patients, and realise that many of them also think the service is for the religious which will influence their signposting. Sue recalls a particularly lonely spell in isolation when a pastoral visit would have been of great benefit, and this prompts us to recognise that we could look to identifying and targeting similar 'pinch points'. Sue shares her knowledge of customer care and talks us through the benefits of benchmarking and options for gathering feedback that informs practice and identifies more accurately what is going well and what needs attention. The act of finding out can also open up the opportunity for pastoral conversations and we wonder if volunteers could take on an feedback-gathering role. There is always scope to refresh how we do things and sharpen our communications to be more inclusive and successful - Sue offers us another lens through which to look at what we do.
