Post Chat Summary by Teresa Chinn MBE (@AgencyNurse) 

This #WeNurses discussion was very close to my heart as a while ago I shared a story around an experience that my friend had via my blog, the post was called Falling Through The Gaps, I shared my story for many reasons:

I shared my story because I needed to write it down

I shared my story because I wanted someone to listen

I shared my story because I felt it might make a difference to another persons care

I share my story to help me make sense of what had happened

I shared my story so that others could learn from it

I came to understand that people share stories about their care for multiple and complex reasons but most often it's simply that they want to be heard.  As nurses stories are an important way for us to learn about how it feels to walk a mile in our patients shoes and for us to reflect upon and improve care.  I felt that @jamesfm55  articulated this well by tweeting:

I agree stories give us something that data cannot - they give us that human connection, the language people use to tell their stories give us context and importance and that emotional connection that other methods of patient feedback lack.  The importance of patient stories was tweeted about lots throughout this conversation:

I think that sometimes we forget that stories can be told in many different ways - through the written word, through video, through blogs, through sites like Patient opinion, through Tweets and Facebook posts, through face to face conversation .. the list goes on!  

But with all of these approaches the key element is the listener .. having someone to listen and then take what they hear, be it good or bad, and learn from it and act upon it is perhaps something that is a work in progress in healthcare. Learning from the good and the bad is a challenge as some of the tweets below recognise:

I think that we are at a very interesting point in time - the advent of social media has given people the potential to tell their stories and share them ... and they are ! From Facebook to YouTube and from Patient Opinion to blogs people are sharing what care looks like from their perspective.  I wonder if, as nurses, our challenge is changing from encouraging people to fill out feedback forms and collecting thank cards and complaint letters?  I wonder if now that people have multiple ways to share their stories if our role is to empower them to do so, to find and listen to those stories (wherever they are told), to learn from and act upon what people share and, in turn, share our own learning with others. 

I was very fortunate that when I shared my story someone listened and heard and I was able to write a follow up blog post Catching Those Who Are Falling and from the perspective of a story telling my one piece of wisdom to nurses everywhere is simply .... Listen.