A patient who had recently undergone macular surgery told staff that he hadn’t been able to find any information about what to expect after having such complex surgery. He said this would have been extremely helpful and reassuring.
Believing that future patients having this surgery would benefit, he drew diagrams of the procedure and sent them to the surgery team to see if they could be of help.
The surgery team were very impressed and recognised that “This would be a fantastic opportunity to use a patient’s own experience to guide other patients through the process.” They engaged the NHS Medical Illustration team to see how best they could be used.
The illustration team said they could use them as part of an animated video that could then be shown to patients and asked us to fund that, which we of course agreed.