This month's PENletter lands at the start of Patient Experience Week, which feels like the right moment to reflect on what we actually mean when we talk about improving experience.
Reading through this month's articles, a pattern emerges. The most meaningful improvements are rarely dramatic. They tend to be small, deliberate, and human: a therapist who finds a way to keep a patient connected to his family; a clinician who asks one question at the start of every shift; a hospital that decides patient advisors should sit in the room not just be consulted after the fact.
What links these stories is a shift in where the work starts. Not with a system, a survey, or a strategy, but with the person in front of you. That is a deceptively simple idea, and a hard one to sustain at scale. But the evidence - and the stories - keep pointing in the same direction.
We hope something in this issue is useful to you this week and beyond.
As always we love any feedback,
The PEN Team
CASE STUDY
For this month's Case Study, we thought we would take the lead from Mental Health Awareness month and so are showcasing the work of Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and their project The Story Shop; Bringing Mental Health Stories to Life.
This project was the winner of the Supporting for Caregivers, Friends and Family award in 2021.
Some dates for your diary coming up that you may want to make a note of:
May 2026
5th May - International Day of the Midwife
12th May - International Nurses Day
11th - 17th May - Mental Health Awareness Week (Theme: Action)
18th–24th May - Dementia Action Week
31st May - World No Tobacco Day
Entire May - Stroke Awareness Month
June 2026
1st - 7th June - Volunteers Week
7th June - National Cancer Survivors Day
8th–14th June - Carers Week (UK)
14th June - World Blood Donor Day
15th - 21st June - Lonliness Awareness Week
15th June - World Elder Abuse Awareness Day
19th June - World Sickle Cell Day
Entire June - Pride Month
July 2026
6th to 12th July - Alcohol Awareness Week
17th July - Disability Awareness Day
24th July - Samaritans Day
28th July - World Hepatitis Day
Entire July - Good Care Month (celebrating social care workers across the UK) & National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month
PICKER EXPERIENCE NETWORK AWARDS 2026
The Picker Experience Network Awards are the first and only awards programme to recognise best practice in patient experience across all facets of health and social care in the UK and beyond.
They celebrate projects, teams, individuals, and initiatives that have made exceptional contributions to care, engagement, service delivery, and wellbeing from the perspective of patients, carers, families, and staff.
This week we are celebrating Patient Experience Week in April (27th April – Friday 1st May) and we have a range of resources and ideas for how to bring this to life at your organisation.
As part of our activities to promote Patient Experience Week we have two webinars available to watch back:
Unlocking funding for patient experience improvement
Best practice from the Picker Experience Network Awards 2025
We have 2 more webinars planned – please see below for further details and to book your free places.
Another resource we are excited to launch is our brand new resource:
Based on the funding webinar and follow-up research; this guide brings together the main tips shared by speakers, useful resources, and a starter list of grant options grouped into eight funding routes. This is designed as a working document and can be adapted as further opportunities emerge.
Finally, we have certificate templates, social media graphics and posters available for download on our PEW 2026 page, alongside plenty of video inspiration and free toolkits.
International Best Practice from the Picker Experience Network Awards Picker 6th May, 12:00 - 13:30
FREE, VIRTUAL, ONLINE
Each year, the Picker Experience Network Awards spotlight patient experience initiatives that have not only improved care, but reshaped cultures, strengthened partnerships, and delivered measurable results for patients and staff.
Rather than focusing solely on what makes an award winner stand out, this session will explore what we can learn from one another across borders. By bringing together the overall winner and shortlisted finalists, we will look beyond geography to uncover the shared barriers, common ambitions, and familiar constraints that shape patient experience work in every system.
Different countries. Different structures. Strikingly similar challenges.
By the end of the session, participants will:
Recognise the common challenges and enablers that shape patient experience improvement across different national and organisational contexts.
Hear directly from teams who have implemented high impact interventions in diverse health systems.
Identify transferable practices, tools, and approaches that can be adapted across countries and cultures.
Understand how collaboration and shared learning can accelerate progress beyond local boundaries.
This is an opportunity not only to see what “great” looks like, but to discover how much we share and how much stronger our work becomes when learning flows across borders.
How to prepare a successful entry for the Picker Experience Network Awards 2026 Picker 13th May, 12:00 - 13:30
FREE, VIRTUAL, ONLINE
The Picker Experience Network (PEN) Awards recognise best practice in patient experience across all areas of health and social care in the UK. The aim of the awards is to improve patient and staff experience by sharing and celebrating best practice. With 20 categories this year, there is an opportunity for a diverse range of teams to showcase their work.
In this webinar, we discuss what makes a successful entry. Our panellists, consisting of judges and previous winners, share how to use the judging criteria to create an impressive case study from your work and top tips on how to ensure you effectively demonstrate the impact of your work on patient and staff experience.
Measuring, Understanding and Acting on Patient Experience Insight: From Insight to Improvement Healthcare Conferences UK
21st May VIRTUAL, ONLINE
The 10 Year plan for health highlights the importance of the effective use of patient feedback putting patient experience as a key determinant of quality and performance. This timely conference will focus on measuring, understanding and acting on real time patient experience insight, and demonstrating responsiveness to that insight to ensure patient feedback is translated into quality improvement and assurance. Through national updates and case study presentations the conference will support you to measure, monitor and improve patient experience in your service, and ensure that insight leads to improvement.
Newsletter subscribers can get a 20% discount with codehcuk20pi
The Hospital Rooms Futures Fund Art Project Open Call is open to applications from NHS Trusts.
DEADLINE, 22nd May
The Futures Fund will allow Hospital Rooms to invest between £6,000 and £500,000 in NHS Art Projects prioritising the following categories:
NHS Mental Health Estate Uplift Projects: We know that mental health hospital buildings are clinical in nature and too often in poor condition. We will support you to elevate the quality of your hospital building by installing world class artworks in these spaces. All types of mental health services can apply to this fund.
Young People Projects: We know artistic interventions in Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services can build self esteem, confidence and skills in young people. We will deliver young person centred creative programmes and artworks in these spaces. Only Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services can apply to this fund.
We invite NHS Trusts to apply to the Futures Fund for projects taking place 2027 – 2029.
In either category, you can apply at a different level:
Ward Transformation: from £45,000
Hospital or Service Transformation: from £150,000
The Futures Fund has also ringfenced a portion of funding to support mental health hospitals to embed the Digital Art School within their services.
Digital Art School Integration: from £6,000
NHS Trusts are required to financially contribute to the project at the same level of Hospital Rooms. A bespoke project scope and budget will be created for each shortlisted applicant.
If you are from an NHS Trust and would like to collaborate with us, please read the guidance before the 22nd May. Applications will be processed and reviewed as they are received.
Putting Compassion at the Centre: For Patients, Communities and Ourselves BMA’s Patient Liaison Group (PLG) Virtual Symposium
5th June VIRTUAL, ONLINE
Save the date for BMA PLG’s annual symposium on Friday 5 June 2026, 9:30 – 13:00.
How do we keep care truly compassionate, for every patient, in pressured services and an increasingly digitalised health system? This online symposium will examine what compassionate care looks like in practice, whether digital and AI technologies strengthen or undermine compassionate care, and what specific compassion and support may be needed for different marginalised communities. We’ll also consider self-care and personal compassion, recognising that sustaining compassion matters for patients, communities and ourselves.
More detailed information, the agenda and the registration link will follow.
BMA PLG always welcomes ideas and views from delegates in advance of the symposium to help guide activity on the day. Please do share your priorities with us at info.plg@bma.org.uk
If you know of any colleagues that may be interested in this year’s symposium, please ask them to contact our conference unit at confunit@bma.org.uk and we will ensure further information is provided.
PICKER NEWS
Learning and Development team updates
An important part of how we pursue our mission to improve person-centred care is by supporting co-production. Next month, our Learning and Development team is delivering bespoke training in Experience-Based Co-Design for researchers at the University of Bristol, to support a project that aims to reduce inequalities in heart failure outcomes.
Early diagnosis of heart failure has a big impact on outcomes, but for many people – in particular women, people with long‑term conditions, and people from disadvantaged backgrounds – diagnosis tends only to take place during emergency hospital admissions. Our training will enable the team to run citizen panel workshops to understand people’s experiences, and co-design improvements with patients and clinicians.
This work follows a recent project with Northumbria University, which brought together researchers, young adults with neuromuscular conditions, and staff from the local authority to co-design improvements in social services.
If you are interested in learning about the EBCD methodology, we have just announced new dates for open courses in October and November. Training is through a one-day in-person workshop, or through four 2-hour sessions online, and combines friendly expert tuition with toolkits and resources, coaching and free membership of our community of practice.
In a system often focused on fixing what goes wrong, The Power of Moments shifts the lens to something equally important: how we deliberately create experiences people remember for the right reasons. Chip Heath and Dan Heath show how small, intentional actions can turn ordinary interactions into meaningful moments, through connection, recognition, and clarity at key points in a journey.
During Patient Experience Week, this feels particularly relevant. It’s a reminder that experience isn’t only about reducing complaints or smoothing processes, it’s about designing care that feels human, thoughtful, and memorable, even within pressured systems.
The challenge it poses is simple: Which moments in your service truly stand out for patients, and are they happening by chance, or by design?
The Patient Experience Library featured Patient Experience and patient/public involvement in health and care services and Learning from patients.
How can healthcare systems learn from patients?
Sometimes the answer lies in conventional mechanisms such as patient surveys and the Friends and Family Test. But sometimes learning comes from letting patients explain - in their own words and on their own terms – what matters to them.
Patient Experience Week (27 April - 1 May) is a prompt to celebrate but as this year's global reflection reminds us, the real work happens in the other 51 weeks. This piece makes a point that travels: patient-centred culture is built through everyday habits, not annual events.
Honouring lived experience: patient partners shaping better care
A personal account from Shared Health Manitoba of how patient and family advisors are driving genuine change, not as consultees, but as contributors to design.
NHS admin problems affecting two thirds of patients and carers
Healthwatch England's latest data shows 66% of NHS patients and carers experienced at least one administrative problem in the past year, up from 64% in 2024. A timely reminder that experience improvement cannot focus only on the clinical encounter. Missed appointments, unclear letters, and poor communication in the surrounding system undermine trust even when care itself is excellent. Click here to read more.
Workforce and culture
Vanderbilt Health: what lasting culture change actually looks like
A decade-long case study on what it takes to embed patient experience into how an organisation operates, not as a campaign, but as a way of working. Rare candour about what worked, including the finding that internal staff behaviours are as important to patient experience as patient-facing interactions. Click here to read more.
How US health systems are tackling physician burnout and why it matters for patients
The connection made here, that staff wellbeing drives discretionary effort, which drives care quality and patient experience, is well evidenced and worth sharing with leadership teams. Click here to read more.
Innovation in practice
The NHS innovation that kept a Parkinson's patient connected with his daughters
University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Trust introduced a voice therapy approach that enabled a patient with Parkinson's disease to maintain communication with his long-distance daughters. Patient feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and the service has been able to see more people as a result. Click here to read more.
A single question that changed the culture of an emergency department
The chief of emergency medicine at Niagara Health introduced one simple question at the start of each shift focused on what matters most to the patient in front of the team. The impact on culture and experience has been measurable. Low cost, high transferability. Click here to read more.
Reducing preoperative sedation in children by 50% through experience-led redesign
A US children's hospital set out to improve the patient experience around surgery preparation and unexpectedly achieved a near 50% reduction in preoperative sedation within months, not through a clinical protocol change but by redesigning the experience itself to reduce anxiety. A reminder that experience and outcomes are not competing priorities. Click here to read more.
On AI - one article worth your time
Healthcare AI is here. But does it actually help patients?
MIT Technology Review raises a question the sector needs to sit with: AI tools in healthcare have been evaluated largely on clinician and administrator satisfaction, not on patient outcomes. As investment in AI accelerates, this is a useful corrective for anyone making or influencing decisions about where to spend. Click here to read more.
RESOURCE LIBRARY
Let's Talk - rooms to Deliver Sensitive Conversations University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust
Cancer Patient Experience Survey Award - Finalist PEN 2019
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