Implementing feedback mechanisms for community members and patients is a valuable resource that can help health care programs steer their services toward the people they are serving.

In Ascend, a range for feedback mechanisms for neglected tropical disease (NTD) programmes were implemented in a variety of countries and settings. Many of these feedback mechanisms had not previously been used in the context of NTD programmes, such as mass drug administration campaigns (MDAs) and morbidity management and disability prevention (MMDP) in their respective locations.

Through extensive planning with Ascend country teams, Ministries of Health and monitoring and evaluation specialists, feedback mechanisms for patients and community members were designed and implemented in many of the countries where Ascend operates. These patient and community centered feedback tools, referred to throughout our project as beneficiary feedback mechanisms (BFM), resulted in tangible programmatic changes in several of the regions where they were implemented.

The BFM Learning Brief provides insight into the need for these tools, how they were implemented, and changes that occurred because of their use. It recognizes the importance of acknowledging local contexts and cultural sensitivity when implementing these measures, and uses case studies to provide numerous lessons that were learned throughout different stages of the implementation process.

The BFM Toolkit is a practical document containing the numerous different tools that were used collecting feedback throughout the program. It contains BFM for several of the NTD interventions that the Ascend program focuses on, and makes note of the country in which the tool was used.

It is our hope that these resources both demonstrate the importance of using BFM, as well as help to encourage and guide future BFM use. With further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.