Who we are

The Patient Experience Network (PEN) is an independent, ‘not for profit’, service provider and membership-based network.  PEN is founded upon an understanding of the importance of a great experience – whether this is for patients, carers or staff.

In April 2024, the Patient Experience Network was acquired by the Picker Group, bringing together two market leaders in measuring, understanding and improving people’s care experiences and outcomes. Picker’s acquisition of PEN builds on a strong history of collaborative working between the two organisations. The acquisition combines our breadth of expertise in person centred care and strong standing across the private and public health & care sectors.

Click here to read the Press Release in full.

PEN welcomes everyone who has a desire to improve patient, service user or staff experience.  Our aim is to provide a valuable, practical resource and service for anyone wishing to improve the experience for patients or staff.

A key emphasis of the network is learning from each other and sharing best practice. Our overarching aim is to help organisations improve both patient and staff experience, which in turn will improve organisational performance.

People drive patient experience….patient experience drives performance”

What we do

PEN is founded upon an understanding of the importance of a great experience – whether this is patients, carers or staff; individuals, teams or entire organisations.

Our Patient Experience Network National Awards (PENNA) has been evaluating bottom up transformation in patient experience for 14 years, identifying quality improvement programmes, celebrating them and sharing the learning.

PEN is widely recognised as an expert in experience of care and has worked with a range of organisations to develop focussed, bespoke approaches.

There are so many ways to engage with us:

  • Help yourself to our resources – review our reports, check out our best practice case studies and other resources to network and collaborate
  • Become an individual member (no charge) – receive our newsletter, gain access to our latest news and events
  • Recognise and celebrate good practice – take part in our awards, submit a case study or simply join our celebration
  • Join as an organisational member – benchmark your services, access board level thought-leadership, guidance and discounts on key services,
  • Take part in our accredited learning – join one of our programmes to become an accredited practitioner
  • Focus on a specific area – access our expertise and our consultancy

Our aim is to ensure that we are there for you – whether as an individual or organisation – to improve both patient and staff experience

What is Patient Experience?

It may be worth clarifying what we mean by Patient Experience.

Patient Experience is the sum of the patient’s experiences during their care and is a function of the level of ‘service’ they receive. It is their personal experience of ‘what actually happened’ during care or treatment and includes whether they received the level of care that mattered to them.

Patients are, of course, not the only people who experience healthcare services and a comprehensive approach must involve other ‘service users’ such as families and carers. We should consider ‘Patient Experience’ as convenient phrase to include the experience of all service users.

Staff experience is a key enabler to patient experience and so patient and staff experience are inextricably linked.

Meet the PEN team

Ruth Evans

Ruth is the Managing Director of the Patient Experience Network (PEN). She is a founder of PEN. She is delighted to see how the understanding about patient experience and experience in general is developing and improving.

If you would like to get in touch she can be contacted on:

Louise Blunt

Louise is Operations Director of the Patient Experience Network (PEN). She makes sure everything runs smoothly across our programmes. She is an enthusiastic champion of improving the experience of care.

If you would like to get in touch she can be contacted on:

Helen Brady

Helen looks after our events including our annual award celebration and conference. She makes sure each one is brilliant!

If you would like to get in touch she can be contacted on:

Josh Brent

Whenever we can, we take photos or videos of the best practice being shared, as well recording podcasts and webinar sessions.

Josh looks after these resources. As a sound engineer, he also helps us capture any audio when we are doing research.

Michelle Jones

Michelle and the team look after our email and our phones, so she may be your first point of contact! Michelle looks after the office team who work hard to make sure we look after our members.

If you would like to get in touch she can be contacted on:

Paul Winsper

Paul is our maestro designer - he makes our resources look beautiful.

Our Principles and Values

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

Our Core Values:

Uncover and recognise good practice to 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

What our Members Say about us...

“PEN have been instrumental in this achievement...”

Organisation recently recognised by CQC as outstanding

“The training given has been inspirational - we have never had anything like this before”

Head of Nursing - Private Hospital

“PENNA is a highlight in our patient experience diary”

Patient Experience Lead - NHS

“PEN can always be relied upon to make it brilliant”

Commissioner - NHS