VoiCEs (Value of including the Children’s Experience for improving their rightS during hospitalization) was a European collaborative initiative dedicated to capturing and integrating children’s and adolescents’ experiences into paediatric hospital care.
The project developed a participatory framework that actively involved young patients in reporting on their hospital experiences, enabling healthcare professionals and hospital teams to identify areas for improvement from the child’s perspective. VoiCEs focused on ensuring that children’s voices were heard directly, rather than relying solely on caregiver reports, and supported the development of child-centred quality improvement strategies.
A core outcome of the project was the establishment of a European observatory for paediatric Patient-Reported Experience Measures (PREMs), facilitating standardised collection, benchmarking, and comparison of children’s experiences across participating hospitals. The project also produced tools, methodologies, and guidance to support the wider adoption of PREMs throughout European children’s hospitals.
