Patient Experience

Keep in touch with your friends or relatives who are staying in our hospitals by using our Letters to Loved Ones service.

If you would like to send a letter and photo, please complete the form below:

If you speak little or no English and you would prefer things to be explained in a language you are more comfortable with, we can arrange for you to have a professional interpreter at your hospital appointment. 

We can offer you interpreting in many language, this is mainly provided by telephone. We also support our patients requiring: 

• British sign language 
• braille 
• large print 

If you need an interpreter or you know someone who does, please phone the clinic or ward that you are attending in advance so we can arrange the service you need. 

For more information about interpreting services, please email mse.interpreting@nhs.net. 

We want you to get involved with our Patient and Public Partnership Programme  

We have many exciting opportunities for all individuals with lived experiences to join us to improve the experience of people who use our services. We welcome applications from candidates who represent different backgrounds and communities and have various experiences.

Our patient and public partner programme is flexible so it's up to you how you get involved with the option of forum discussions, surveys, improvement projects and recruitment to suit your schedule. 

If you would like to be involved or would like more information on the programme, please contact us mse.patientexperience@nhs.net.

The Accessible Information Standard (AIS) means all NHS Trusts must offer reasonable adjustments to help people who have a disability, impairment or sensory loss to fully understand the information we give them. It applies to communication during an appointment and any information we provide to take away. 

There are five requirements of the standard we must follow to ensure that people using our services receive information in a way they can access and understand: 

1. Identifying needs: ask people if they have any information or communication needs, and find out how to meet their needs. 
2. Recording needs: record those needs in a clear and standardised way in electronic and paper notes. 
3. Flagging needs: ensure that those recorded needs are ‘highly visible’ and prompt staff to act whenever they look at a patient’s notes. 
4. Sharing needs: include information about people’s needs when sharing information with other services or referring to other parts of the NHS and social care. 
5. Meeting needs: take steps to ensure that people receive information that they can access and understand, and receive communication support if they need it. 

If you need any information in a different format, please ask your clinician at your next appointment. We will record your needs for all future appointments. 

One of the fundamental principles of the Standard is that our patients, service users, carers, and parents are asked to self-define their information or communication support needs and that these needs (rather than disabilities) are recorded. 

If your requirements are not being met, please let us know so we can fix this. Please talk to your clinician about this first. If you are not getting the support you need, contact our PALS team: https://mid-essex.verseonecloud.com/pals.