Happy patients leads to hospital cash boost

Rochdale Infirmary is to be among the first hospitals in the country to be paid according to how happy it makes its patients.

Under a trial scheme, it will receive extra cash if patients who have undergone surgery say their experience was positive.

Within weeks, patients will start filling in questionnaires as they recover from surgery, rating everything from going into hospital, the speed of their treatment, to food quality, staff friendliness, whether their ward was dirty and their follow-up care.

Health secretary Andy Burnham said: “We want to change the ‘get what you are given’ culture the service has bred. The NHS needs a system that pays hospitals more money when patients are pleased by their experience.”

The scheme will start in April, hiking payments by up to 4% for two key treatments — hip surgery and knee surgery — where quality and patient experience are high.

A hospital currently receives up to £9,000 for a hip operation and up to £5,000 for a knee operation.

The shake-up will start in the North West because it is already piloting an Advancing Quality scheme, which links payments to the standard of treatment, such as whether antibiotics were administered at the correct time.

Now that project will be taken much further, by testing patients’ “emotional response throughout their journey, from going into hospital to post treatment”.

The eventual rewards for better care, once the scheme is extended to other types of surgery, could top £9 million at the average district hospital — about £1 in every £25 spent.