Understanding and using health experiences to improve healthcare—examples from the United Kingdom

Abstract

This chapter explores the variety of ways in which people’s narrative accounts of their health experiences can be harnessed to inform practice, service development, and health policy, as well as a more traditional research agenda. The case has been made that collecting data on patient experience as an activity in isolation is not enough. Health experiences should be used to improve care. But what are the most effective ways to achieve this? This chapter presents examples of projects conducted in the United Kingdom where patient narratives collected as part of the Healthtalk project (www.healthtalk.org) were used for health service improvement. Examples include secondary analysis, and co-design projects using experience based co-design and an accelerated approach to co-design.