In the fifth annual survey, the Healthcare Commission gathered responses from nearly 76,000 adult inpatients at 165 hospital trusts in England. While satisfaction with overall care remains high, the Commission emphasised the need for lower ranked trusts to learn from the results and use the best performing trusts as examples.
In ITV's coverage of the results, two of Dr Foster Intelligence's customers were featured. Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust's Director of Nursing was interviewed, and Luton and Dunstable Hospital NHS Foundation Trust demonstrated the use of Patient Experience Tracker (PET) handsets on wards.
Claire Tripp, Papworth's Director of Nursing, said "In relation to food, privacy and dignity, making sure that we have clean bathroom facilities, all of those sorts of things – the modern matrons are key to keeping those agendas absolutely top of the shop." Papworth was ranked sixth in the country for both patient care and quality of food, something the Trust is both proud of and keen to keep improving on.
Papworth uses PET to ask questions in all areas of the Trust. Questions are rotated every six months; they are planned well in advance and often revolve around compliance with national policy, such as the essence of care benchmarks, as well as specific local questions.
In Luton and Dunstable, PET has been identified as a major component of the Trust's plans for improvements. Ranked as one of the worst performing trusts on patient care in the west Anglia region, the organisation recognises the importance of making improvements through patient input.
Janet Graham, Deputy Director of Nursing, said that "PET will give us the opportunity to ask more patients more questions and get almost instantaneous feedback so that we can put actions in place to improve."
The results of the Healthcare Commission survey offer a valuable insight into the experiences of patients and can be used in hospitals to direct improvements to the quality of care.
See the full report by ITV here and read more about Papworth's success here.
For more information about Patient Experience Trackers, call Alexis Mswaka on 020 7332 8839 or visit the Dr Foster Intelligence website.
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