Forget Trip Advisor, now HOSPITALS are asking whether we'd recommend them to family and friends
- From April, every NHS patient in England will be asked to give feedback on their stay
- Government hopes the move will improve standards
- Patients will be able to vote online, by text or by post
Feedback: Departing hospital patients will be asked to rate their experience and whether they would recommend their ward
Hospital patients are to be asked whether they would recommend their ward to friends and family, under new government guidance issued yesterday.
From April next year, every patient in England attending A&E or admitted to a ward will be able to give the customer service-style feedback.
Called the Friends and Family Test, the aim of the initiative is to help hospitals to identify poor performance and encourage staff to make improvements where services do not live up to patients' expectations.
Upon leaving hospital, patients will be asked: ‘How likely are you to recommend our ward/A&E department to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?’’
They will be given the choice of six options from ‘extremely likely’ to ‘extremely unlikely’.
Follow-up questions will be asked where appropriate.
The answers will be made public so that everyone has a clear idea of which wards, A&E departments and hospitals are providing the best care.
THE FRIENDS AND FAMILY TEST QUESTIONS
THE WARD:
How likely are you to recommend our ward to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?
A&E:
How likely are you to recommend ourA&E to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?
POSSIBLE RESPONSES:
Extremely likely
Likely
Neither likely nor unlikely
Unlikely
Extremely unlikely
Don't know
Patients will be able to register their feedback online, via text messages, a smart phone app, telephone survey, postcard or ‘voting booth’ in the hospital.
It is hoped that at least 15 per cent of patients from each NHS Trust will respond.
Day cases, maternity patients, outpatients, and those under 16 will not be asked to take part.
Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, said: ‘We want the NHS to treat patients as individuals, focus on making services more responsive to their needs and ensure they have as positive an experience of care as possible.
‘Patients need to be listened to and their feedback acted upon. They also need to know that their hospital of choice is driving improvements to provide the very best care.
'Rolling out the Friends and Family Test in the wards and A&E departments of every hospital will make this a reality across the NHS.’
The questionnaire was trialled in hospitals across the Midlands this summer and was generally well received.
