PEN FAQs

Find answers to common questions below.

Q: What is PEN?
A:

An independent, ‘not-for-profit’ membership based network. We welcome all involved or interested in the patient (or staff!) experience – with a commitment to continuously improve.

Q: What is PEN trying to achieve?
A:

Our goal is to provide a valuable resource/service for all organisations wishing to improve patient experience and the staff experience.  This includes NHS and other healthcare organisations, pharmaceutical companies, charities, universities and councils among many many others.

Q: Who are PEN? / Who is behind PEN?
A:

PEN was conceived and developed by a group of individuals committed to creating a groundswell around the patient experience.

Q: Is PEN independent?
A:

Yes, PEN is an independent company; our independence is important to us. We are independent of both the NHS and the Government, although we welcome members from both.

We are not for profit which means we are not beholden to share-holders and we are funded by a wide range of different partner and activities, which means we are not unduly influenced by any one major funder or sector.

We are “sector agnostic” and therefore welcome participation from all involved or interested in improving the patient experience.

Q: What are the PEN principles and values?
A:

Our Core Purpose:  Supporting organisations to enhance their reputation of care by providing an independent and trusted resource to help improve patient and staff experience

Core Values

  • Uncover and recognise good practice and identify what is working well.  We do this by offering support to measure and benchmark performance; and by defining what is good and providing expert insight
  • Celebrate good practice and raise the profile of what is working well.  We do this both within an organisation and externally
  • Recognition is relevant across different levels: personal, team and organisational.  We publicise good practice both to our own network and across our partners
  • Share what works.  By encouraging widespread roll out, embedding and sustaining good practice both internally and disseminating across a wider audience
  • Collaborate with trusted partners.  Welcoming partners who share our ethos and philosophy and working together to improve the patient and staff experience
  • Inclusive, welcoming all partners.  Across the breadth of social and health care we focus on improving the experience for all involved
Q: Why are PEN doing it?
A:

PEN believes that there are some great examples of delivery of excellent experience already happening in healthcare.

Our first ambition is to recognise, share and celebrate these examples.

Our second ambition is to inspire people to accelerate improvements to patient and staff experience.

We aim to achieve this through thought leadership, providing a mechanism for sharing best practice and providing additional training and consultancy services – some of which may be provided through partners.

Q: Which organisations would want to join?
A:

Any organisation or individual involved with or has an interest in the patient or staff experience. This includes all healthcare organisations (NHS organisations and Private health providers), Pharmaceutical manufacturers, Wholesalers/retailers, CROs, Patient Groups, Care Charities, GP, Dental, Optician practices, social services, Councils,  Suppliers of patient experience related services among many others.

Q: What organisations are already involved?
A:

We have welcomed involvement from a wide range of organisations already. These organisations have been involved in many different facets of our network.  Some were integral to our development while others have been actively engaged with various elements of our portfolio, for example PENNA, the National Awards programme and our training and development resources. Details are found on the relevant areas of our website.

Q: How is PEN funded?
A:

PEN is self-funded through membership fees, sponsorship and fees for ‘commercial services’ such as training. We are not for profit which means that after we have paid the bills we re-invest any surplus funds in to developing the service we offer and helping to improve patient experience.

Q: How much does it cost to join PEN?
A:

Membership is available at different levels depending on whether you are an individual or an organisation, what kind of resources you wish to access and how you wish to work with PEN.

Details of our membership packages are found under Membership.

Please note by signing up to our newsletter you become an individual member and there is no charge for this service.