Patients are reportedly happy with the services they received at the Weston General Hospital outpatient department. The survey of 850 patients revealed Weston Area Health NHS Trust has improved in 13 areas since the last survey in 2009 and performs significantly better than other NHS trusts in 12 areas.
The survey revealed the trust performed well in giving a choice of appointment time and making patients fully aware what would happen during the appointment. Patients said appointments started within 15 minutes of the stated time and doctors fully listened to they had to say. The outpatients department also performed well in categories of patients being told about the possible side effects of medication and treating patients with respect and dignity.
In addition 93 per cent reported their overall rating of care as good, very good or excellent and 91 per cent reported they were treated with respect and dignity at all times in the outpatient department. The survey showed that the level of service offered at Weston has not deteriorated in any category since the 2009 survey.
Weston Area NHS Trust director of nursing, Irene Gray, said, “It is very pleasing to see our outpatients have been able to recognize the improvements we have made to our service over the past two years and to read their heart-warming and complimentary comments. When people think of hospitals, they tend to think of our wards and patients in beds, but a very large proportion of our activity is carried out in the Outpatient Department and it is very important to us that all our patients have a good experience of our care.”
Yet another survey shows last year some 23 per cent had their consultation with a specialist postponed once, twice or even three times. This was an increase on 2009, the last time a poll was conducted, when 21 per cent had their slots put back. A poll of 72,000 patients by the Care Quality Commission watchdog also reveals that half are waiting more than a month to get a hospital appointment.
Nearly a third (31 per cent) said their symptoms got worse during this time. Once seen, 36 per cent of patients said they were not warned by doctors or nurses about potentially dangerous side effects of their medication. Another 33 per cent claim they were not told what ‘danger’ symptoms to look out for if their condition got worse. The same proportion of patients said hospital staff did not bother to inform them who they should contact if they were worried about their illness or treatment.
Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said, “Patients are not at the centre of their care if they are given inadequate or confusing information about their condition. This is an area that significantly needs to improve if the Department of Health is to meet its pledge of “no decision about me, without me”.”
The CQC claimed the survey showed that some aspects of basic hospital care had improved since 2009 when a similar poll was undertaken, but insisted there was still more to be done. The survey also found that 17 per cent of patients do not think their doctors know enough about their medical history, including 5 per cent who said they knew ‘little’ or ‘nothing’.
Public health minister Anne Milton said, “We want people to feel involved at every step of the care they get in hospital. There really should be “no decision about me, without me”. It is clear that there is more to do to improve the experiences of our patients. This is why we are modernizing the NHS to put patients first.”
The NHS website featuring reviews of hospitals has seen thousands of patients accurately predict which treatment centers have high death rates and superbug infections. Hospitals with good ratings on the NHS Choices website had a 5 per cent lower death rate and 11 per cent lower readmission rate.
Researchers from Imperial College London compared over 10,000 patient ratings of all 166 NHS acute hospital trusts against clinical data on health outcomes including death rates, readmission rates, and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections.
NHS Choices lets patients give their views and ratings on UK hospitals. The hospitals with the best ratings for cleanliness also had a 42 per cent lower rating of MRSA infections when compared to those with the worse ratings, the study found. There was also a correlation between positive reviews and hospitals with low rates of Clostridium difficile. Researchers also found a link between good patient ratings and hospitals with low death rates in high-risk conditions.
The study included 10,274 patient ratings of 166 NHS acute hospital trusts between 2009 and 2010. The results demonstrated 'a relationship between patients’ Web site ratings of hospitals and some objective measures of clinical quality, including mortality and infection rates', according to the study.
Patient ratings on hospitals have often been treated with skepticism by medics due to their subjective nature. Dr Felix Greaves, the lead author of the Imperial College London study, said the NHS Choices patient ratings were 'useful and relevant'. He told the Daily Telegraph, “The match between online ratings and other measures is far from perfect. It’s possible for an individual hospital to have good ratings on NHS Choices but a high mortality rate, or vice versa. However, the general trend is that where a hospital’s overall performance on clinical measures is good, patients seem to rate it highly – and vice versa. We suggest that, at least to an extent, the crowd of patients appears to be wise.”
Government health minister Simon Burns said the study suggests “patient feedback could be even more valuable than previously thought”.
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