Is your project truly making a difference? | Easy steps to create a powerful evaluation

It’s not enough to just evaluate your project at the very end. You need to build reflections all the way through the project and capture feedback as you go along... Emails, passing conversations, changes to templates, issues that arose. It’s all valid.

And don’t be frightened to ask patients what they think (this used to be me). Involve them and survey them and staff:

• How did they find the provision?

• What did they think of the communication?

• Do they feel more informed?

• What has changed? Etc...

I've recently read and contributed to a draft annual report that a GP Federation has produced, and the reflections have been incredible.

As our time is coming to an end with this client, it’s been amazing to see and share all the work we've done and the money we've secured into general practice. And, all along the way, the tweaks we've made to communications, care plans, reporting, meetings and how we collect information, have been in response to the feedback we've received.

I’m sure many practices think that we don’t listen and take onboard their feedback, but we do — every single comment.

It’s been hard work, but if we hadn’t collected feedback along the way, all this learning would probably have been lost by the organisation.

I feel proud to know that the contribution of everyone in the team has really made a difference.

Practical steps

You don't necessarily need to do a formal evaluation, and you can start today by:

Tara Humphrey is the founder of THC Primary Care, a leading healthcare consultancy specialising in workforce transformation and the only consultancy to have worked with 11 Training Hubs across South London, Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

Tara and her team also work with GP federations supporting the implementation of clinical services.

Tara has over 20 years of project management and business development experience across the private and public sector and has an MBA in Leadership and Management in Healthcare, is published in the London Journal of Primary Care and is the author of over 150 blogs articles. She presents her own podcast: The Business of Healthcare With Tara Humphrey.