Dr Foster Intelligence

Patient experience

Problem: The Trust wanted to gain patient feedback in an innovative way, reaching as many patients and members of the public as possible to improve the quality of their services.
Solution: The Trust purchased Patient Experience Trackers (PETs) in January 2008 to capture real time patient feedback and understand how their patients felt about their care.
Outcome: Over 6,000 patient responses were captured in 2008. These comments were fed back to the relevant teams weekly and reported to the board monthly. Comments are also published bi-monthly to members and staff via newsletters to show the trust is listening and improving services based on patient feedback.
Tool: Patient Experience Tracker

Problem: The Trust wanted to measure real-time patient feedback as part of their three-year Patient and Public Involvement Strategy and use it to make informed decisions to improve service delivery.
Solution: The Trust began using the Patient Experience Tracker (PET) in July 2008 to look at how satisfied their patients were upon discharge and in the inpatients units, enabling investigation of problem areas and identifying suitable improvements. The aim was to look at real-time feedback to supplement and act on areas already highlighted from the inpatient survey.
Outcome: Within the first three months, more than 1,800 responses were captured using PET with immediate action plans implemented. A key problem area identified was patient information. Patients felt that they did not receive enough information about their care. As a result the Trust has considerably improved staff-patient communication and are now looking at other areas that have receive mixed results on the patient experience tracker including catering and waiting times.
Tool: Patient Experience Tracker

Problem: The trust wanted a wide range of patients and members of the public to become involved in the design of services. It also wanted to improve communication between its staff and patients and the public.
Solution: Patient Experience Tracker (PET) handsets are being used to identify areas in need of improvement and to encourage staff by acknowledging jobs well done. PET has helped the trust to establish continual dialogue between staff and patients, as well as to improve internal communications.
Outcome: In the first six months, the project generated more than 2,600 responses from the public, and small but significant changes have already been made to a number of services.
Tool: Patient Experience Tracker

Problem: Staff at the GP practice had noticed an increase in demand for extended opening hours, but did not have enough data or evidence on which to base a change.
Solution: Using Patient Experience Tracker (PET), the practice polled a substantial number of new and current patients about registration and opening times.
Outcome: More than 560 patients were surveyed, giving the practice the information they needed to adjust their opening hours, providing greater benefit to patients.
Tool: Patient Experience Tracker

Problem: The Trust wanted to maximise the effectiveness of its patient feedback and use it to inform strategic planning and performance management.
Solution: The Trust experimented with compliance goals and found the number that manages to both motivate staff and remain an achievable goal. Involvement from all teams at the Trust is sought in identifying areas of improvement.
Outcome: Teams learn where they are doing well and where they can improve and have the confidence in the programme to swiftly identify and fix a problem whenever one is identified. PET is also being used as a tool in the next stage of the Trust's quality improvement plan.
Tool: Patient Experience Tracker

Problem: The trust wanted to be able to communicate with hard to reach patients in order to improve services where applicable. Previous methods of surveying patients had proved limited, with large groups being missed.
Solution: The trust began using Dr Foster Intelligence's Patient Experience Tracker (PET) in order to reach patient groups that had proved difficult to engage with in the past. The system allows easy access to patients' concerns, complaints and comments, enabling the trust to respond rapidly.
Outcome: The trust aims to achieve a 75 per cent response rate from patients using services where PET is available. The improved channels of communication have raised the levels of trust and understanding between staff and patients. Teamwork and intra-trust confidence have increased because of the partnerships formed in implementing and managing the data capture and response systems.
Tool: Patient Experience Tracker

Problem: Surveys indicated that patients were unhappy with the food, but there was not sufficient information to explain why.
Solution: When the Patient Experience Tracker handsets were introduced, staff quickly realised why patients were unhappy with the food and were able to correct the problems. Changes were made to the methods of delivering and serving the patients' meals, which resulted in a steep increase in patient satisfaction.
Outcome: New trolleys were introduced that kept the food warm during its journey from the kitchen to the bedside and, as a result, patient satisfaction with the food was greatly improved.
Tool: Patient Experience Tracker