Patients rate their hospital care

88% of our patients rate the quality of care they receive at Guy’s and St Thomas’ as 7 out of 10 or higher, according to the results of the Care Quality Commission’s national inpatient survey published yesterday (Wednesday 8 June).

A sample of adult inpatients discharged from our hospitals in July 2015 gave their feedback – the overall patient satisfaction rating is 1% higher than when the survey was carried out in 2014.

We have also improved in a number of specific areas compared with 2014:

• privacy when patients are examined in A&E and the length of time that patients wait for a bed on a ward
• quality of hospital food
• confidence and trust in the decisions which staff make about patients’ treatment and the emotional support which staff provide
• patients knowing who to contact if they have a concern after they are well enough to leave hospital and return home.

The Trust’s overall performance, when compared with other trusts, is about the same for 62 of the 63 benchmarking indicators – 1 indicator could not be benchmarked because less than 30 patients answered the question.

However, compared to our own performance in 2014, we have improved on 12 questions but scored significantly worse on 38 indicators.

Dame Eileen Sills, Chief Nurse and Director of Patient Experience, says: “I am grateful to our patients for taking the time to complete the survey. The results help us to identify areas for improvement which we are already taking action to address.”

“Nutrition, support for patients at mealtimes, pain control, and reducing noise at night, are all patient experience priorities for the Trust in 2016-17.

“We launched The Nightingale Project, our new nurse-led initiative to ensure that patients receive safe, effective care delivered with the utmost kindness and clear communication at all times, on Nurses’ Day in May.

“It aims to help support clinical teams to work together in better ways to provide consistency in the key factors affecting patient and staff experience.  

“I look forward to working with all staff to address areas which we need to improve.”

The full results of the survey are available on the Care Quality Commission website.