Duty of Care

 Care Quality Omission -the cartoon in today’s Times – NHS scandal watchdogs ‘should face prosecution’ shouts the front page headline - NHS patients need to be given more power states the leader column.

Adroit-e has been arguing for some years that patients’ insights should be given increased prominence in policy making – but why restrict things to NHS patients?

Many people go to the dentist privately – some practices operate a 2 tier NHS/Private system. Adroit-e has approached dental groups with a plan to operate a rigorous feed back system.

The culture in London NHS hospitals has been described to Adroit-e by leading NHS managers as one where bullying consultants run departments as personal fiefdoms. We responded by developing a plan to train student doctors in conducting feedback research with patients – a small step in improving the role of patients in identifying  an antipathetic culture.

We have consulted with doctors’ surgeries to produce a less anodyne and uneven feedback structure for their patients, than the ones currently in place.

Similarly, we have constructed rigorous feedback systems for those concerned with the care of the elderly, a related structure to the one in today’s headlines but no stranger to recent charges  of systemic malfunction.

None of these feedback programmes is currently in operation – in the hands of managers of these services they have either withered on the grapevine or failed to see the light of day.

It’s part of the same set of circumstances – the truth is something to be avoided at all costs in case it interferes with the smooth running of the business.

Come on guys – you can do better than this!

Market Research is changing – Do’s and Don’ts Updated.

Market Research is changing – Do’s and Don’ts  Updated.

Everyone knows that first the internet and now social media is shaking up the way we do everything – from spending money, to making money, to researching better ways of doing either or both.

Research is my game and what follows is my opinion on what’s Hot and what’s Not.

Survey Monkey Quick Surveys etc

 These are perfectly good, if limited, Research tools. In the wrong hands, for companies using Survey Monkey or Quick surveys etc., it is like placing a chain saw in the hands of 3 year olds – decent tools become lethal in the wrong hands.  Too often users are like the worst DIY amateurs– it’s like they pop down to Jewsons on a Saturday thinkingknow a trick or two , come back with a few bits and bobs for a fraction of the price of a decent plumber – then wreck the walls, the pipework, and ultimately cost you a lot more, with attendant grief.

Don’t do this unless you have decent design, data collection and analysis facilities to hand.

Telephone research 

In a few years this will have disappeared completely – this is because hardly anybody, certainly not young people, bother with their land lines – and no-one has good mobile phone databases – so it may still be a feature of B2B but Not B2C research

Twitter, Face Book, Texts and other social media

The jury is out – there’s a lot of experimentation going on, but market research as we know it is not faring too well – the processes are too lightweight, too superficial to be utterly convincing.

 

 Good New stuff

 

Things like psychographics, the study of personality values, attitudes interests and lifestyles are replacing mere demographics. It’s comparatively early days yet, but it seems to me this approach has legs, particularly in retail.

 

Focus Groups

Properly organized and without too many dubious frills like the interpretation of body language, these are still useful. Better still are data driven discussions where the quantitative drives and acts as a cornerstone of the qualitative research.

 

Online research

 Often the staple for lazy thinkers, dwindling numbers of completions imperil this cheap mode of operational research. It’s successful if you go to companies like YouGov to do it for you but watch the pennies running away.

 

Face to Face research

 If done properly it remains the gold standard. Ensure that your approach includes the right technology, the right field researchers, the right research design and the right analysts, who can tackle both the technology and derive genuine and actionable insights.

Don’t let research amateurs near you. Banish them to the furthest parts of your fiefdom.

DIY - at your peril

DIY – at your peril

‘A fine example of 21^st Century Windbaggery’ ‘Merely a stable which will accept any hobbyhorse’ Very well known for not knowing what it does’

These are just some examples from a squabble this week in a Royal Society and Charity about direction, a breakdown between members and staff and oh yes, the value of Research.

This Society protested it had consulted members through an annual survey, but they committed the venal sin of doing it themselves – the Research was not conducted independently and thereby raised as many problems as it had planned to settle. There have been allegations of suppressed data, poor expression and particular analysis aimed to give prominence to convenient viewpoints.

I know, I know, that Research tools available on the internet can give the illusion of power and impartiality and appear to ‘magic up’ sound quantitative methods.

But don’t do it yourself – if it were a house you might trust yourself with shelves but you’d be a fool to go down the DIY route with complex electrics or  an extension – and even then, your work would be independently assessed to ensure compliance.

So whatever Research you are contemplating, outsource to a Research Agency you can trust - don’t do it yourself.

Jonathan Brill