Trust to use FFT patient feedback to improve its quality of care

Trust to use FFT patient feedback to improve its quality of care

The Director of Nursing for The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said the Trust is keen to use and reflect on its initial first quarter results of the national NHS Friends and Family Test published today to help further improve the quality of care and the patient experience across its hospitals.

The NHS Friends and Family Test (FFT) is a measure of patient experience and satisfaction of services, using a single question that asks: “How likely are you to recommend our ward/A&E department to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?”

Patients in wards and in Accident & Emergency departments are encouraged to answer the question anonymously by completing a postcard or electronic handheld or fixed survey machine. Patients are also asked to provide more detail if they wish to add to their response.

The FFT uses a net promoter score system to provide a single number score which ranges from -100 to +100.

The first quarter results of the FFT for all acute hospital inpatient and accident and emergency departments show that the average FFT score for those inpatients being cared for in hospital wards run by The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust who responded to the question between April and June 2013 was +74, with an average return rate of just over 15%.

The top overall average score during the period was received from wards at The Royal Oldham Hospital scoring +77, with the best result received in May of +82. The latest average FFT score for June for inpatient wards was +77, with the highest score received at North Manchester General Hospital of +79.

The average FFT score for the Trust’s A&E departments was +67, but with a low return rate of 3.1% average during the period.

The Trust’s overall FFT average score taking into account responses from patients in wards and A&E departments was +71 with an average return rate of 6.4% over the period.

This is the first time that the FFT results are being made available at a national level and marks the next step in NHS England’s commitment to transparency, openness and public participation.

The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust runs North Manchester and Fairfield General Hospitals, The Royal Oldham Hospital and Rochdale Infirmary. Last year the Trust saw over 322,000 A&E cases, over 235,000 inpatients and over 75,000 day cases.

Marian Carroll, Director of Nursing at The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “The Trust aims to create an NHS organisation where quality of care, clinical improvement and patient safety underpins all of our services through strong leadership, innovation and a culture of care, compassion, openness and transparency. To achieve this, it is important we listen to and hear the views of our patients and their family and carers. This requires us to adopt an open and transparent culture alongside a commitment to measure and publish information on what matters to patients and staff – clinical outcomes and patient experience.

“Delivering the best quality care for people at the right time and in the right place depends upon listening to feedback and learning from experience. As a Trust we use a variety of methods to capture patient feedback and their views; this includes carrying out national surveys, service-led surveys and collecting ‘real-time’ feedback from patients about their experience in hospital. Our Patient Experience programme also enables our Board members regularly visit wards and clinical areas to meet and talk with patients, the public and staff. And every month the Trust Board receives a presentation about a patient’s experience.

“The NHS Friends and Family Test is another way in which our patients can have their say and help provide us with valuable feedback to improve the service we provide.

“Overall, the results are promising but we need to use this important patient feedback. We will look at these first quarter results, reflect on them and act on them to improve the quality of care we provide in our hospitals and to improve the experience our patients receive whilst in our care. We will also continue to look at ways to increase the numbers of patients who complete the survey over the coming months.”