A guide to inpatient feedback and how you can use this to inform discussions with your hospital and consultant.
What is patient feedback?
Patient feedback gives a view of how patients felt about their treatment and quality of care at a hospital. There are two different areas where patients give feedback:
- Patient satisfaction – This is known as the “Friends and Family test” in the NHS. It shows how likely patients are to recommend the hospital to their friends and family.
- Experience of patients – This looks at whether patients felt that their needs were met by the hospital. This includes whether they felt things were explained clearly, they were listened to and could voice their concerns.
For both 'satisfaction' and 'experience' you can see the percent of people that gave positive feedback. By clicking 'more details' you can see the questions people were asked, and a visual breakdown of how respondents answered.
What can patient feedback tell you about a hospital?
Patient feedback cannot tell you about safety and quality on its own. While patients that have a poor medical outcome may be more likely to provide negative feedback, the survey doesn’t directly reflect medical competence.
Instead, it gives an indication of how patients felt they were treated and looked after during their stay, and an indication of the experience you may expect.
The first thing you may wish to check is whether the hospital has patient feedback at all. Hospitals that record and report patient feedback are likely to have a stronger commitment to service improvement and providing a good experience for patients.
High patient feedback scores show a positive experience, while lower scores or a lack of data may prompt you to question your consultant about the culture of the hospital.
How is this patient reported information collected?
All patients receiving private hospital-based care should be given the opportunity to complete a feedback questionnaire, just as they are in the NHS.
This patient reported feedback data is sent to PHIN, and we use it to calculate the percentage of patients who responded positively to the patient experience survey questions.
While this cannot provide as much detail as a written review, it does provide a good overview of the experience of a range of patients.
Your patient experience checklist
- Check whether your local hospital is reporting patient feedback. If they aren’t, what might this say about the hospital’s dedication to improving patient experiences, and what could this mean for patient care?
- Understand your hospital’s patient feedback. If your chosen hospital has a lower score than other sites, you should ask why this is the case and what they are doing to follow up and address it.
- As part of the decision-making process, ask questions. Use our information and the published numbers to ask your GP or consultant about the hospital’s culture and people’s experiences of care there. You need to be confident that they are the right hospital and consultant for you.
