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Most Health patients are happy with their care but concerns have been raised about staff contradicting each other when delivering that care, a survey has found.
Picker Institute Europe, which conducts regular patient research for the NHS, analysed responses from almost 1,500 Islanders from a sample of 5,725 across five different services – inpatient, outpatient, urgent and emergency care, maternity, and community mental health.
It found that between 67% and 89% rated their overall experience of care at seven or above out of ten. Almost all agreed they were treated with "respect and dignity overall", and with "kindness and understanding".
The most consistently positive responses were from outpatients and those experiencing urgent and emergency care (89%), followed by inpatients (83%), maternity (81%) and community mental health (67%).
These percentages matched or slightly exceeded figures for 2022, although there was then no comparable statistic for outpatients.
Pictured: Tom Hayhoe is the first substantive Chair of the Health and Community Services Advisory Board.
Speaking at yesterday's HCS Advisory Board meeting, newly-appointed chair Tom Hayhoe said: “I spent 13 years chairing acute hospitals and mental heath hospitals in the UK and I’ve never seen figures, in terms of patient satisfaction, as high.
"I'm absolutely blown away by how good people feel about how a good a service they get.”
However, challenges remain with patient communication in some services – 62% in maternity and 47% in community mental health suggested that staff contradicted each other when dealing with them.
Despite this, patients nevertheless reported high satisfaction with the way their questions were answered across all services, and 90% or more said they were given sufficient information and explanations in four of the five services with the figure slightly lower in community mental health at 82%.
Between 86% and 90% said they felt involved in decisions about their care across all five services – with the exception of inpatients, where the figure was lower at 78%.
Pictured: Almost half of community mental health patients suggested that staff contradicted each other when dealing with them.
The Picker Institute, which conducted the survey by questionnaire between October 2023 and January this year, makes three recommendations.
Noting the variation across services in the number of staff contradicting each other, it advocates cross-service communication and shared learning to encouraged evidence-based shared learning.
It also recommends promoting the survey to encourage and boost response rates from the sample survey which fell significantly compared with 2022.
Finally, it encourages HCS to celebrate the continued success of staff in treating patients with respect and dignity, and with kindness and understanding.
Commenting on the results, interim chief nurse Jessie Marshall said: “The Picker survey is independent and hugely well regarded, and we are delighted with the overwhelmingly positive results.
"Our staff work very hard to care for patient’s day in, day out, and I’m so pleased their dedication has been recognised. We will take on board Picker’s recommendations and continue to put patient care at the heart of everything we do.”
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