What happened
The North Mersey Diabetes Action Group is the service user and carer group for the North Mersey Diabetes Network (NHS Knowsley, Liverpool PCT and NHS Sefton).
In the group’s early meetings, they focused on how to improve retinal screening services. One session looked at appointment attendance, ‘did not attend’ (DNA) rates and ideas on how to improve attendance.
The group identified appointment times as a problem – working people could not get to daytime appointments.
As a result, the diabetes project manager worked with the local diabetes services in Walton to establish a ‘trial’ evening clinic. The group was delighted with the clear result of their discussion.
After four weeks it became clear that too many evening appointments were being missed and the evening clinic was stopped.
The outcome
The Network realised that the desire to respond positively to the group’s suggestions had bypassed the usual processes for assessing the feasibility of a change in services. This meant other sources of information were not considered fully and obvious problems were not addressed before the clinic was opened.
The group understood the impact of this and agreed that future ideas should be discussed more thoroughly before going to implementation.