Overview - How to Collect Patient Opinion

The James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust provides comprehensive acute care for the population of Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft and the South Waveney area, and for visitors to the area. This acute care is supported by care in community hospitals for those living in and around the district. It serves a population of approximately 220,000. 

Its vision is to be a first class district general hospital providing; 24 hour excellent care and treatment for the population of Great Yarmouth and Waveney and visitors to the area; high quality education, training and research in healthcare to benefit staff, patients and students; all within financial targets.

Situation:

A key priority for the Trust is to continually improve the quality of its services led by the needs and desires of its ‘customers’. The previous methodologies James Paget was using to collect patient opinion were not providing the data quickly enough plus the quantity of responses was very low, especially from harder to reach groups.

Comments Helen French, Project Manager for James Paget Hospitals, “Previously we have had to wait for results of local or national annual surveys to see if actions we have taken improved the quality of the services we are providing. This has meant we’ve always been reactive to patient needs whereas we really need to be pro-active in this area.”

Therefore, James Paget University Hospitals needed to implement an innovative system to allow it to collect patient feedback for the measurement of PROMs and evaluation of real-time patient experiences. 

Solution:

Implementation of CRT® ViewPoint Patient Feedback Solution
Working with CRT®, James Paget introduced a ViewPoint patient feedback solution throughout the hospital allowing more patients than ever before to leave feedback on their experience whilst in the care of the Trust. The Acute Trust also collects ongoing feedback throughout the year to measure against PROMS benchmarks. Because patients find ViewPoint easy to use, the level of feedback has significantly increased both in quantity and quality. The Trust utilises the information it receives to improve services throughout the organisation.

Examples include:

• A much higher response rates from demographic groups not previously engaged has led to positive change
  for all
• Benchmarking across the Trust for core areas of performance has led to remedial action in identified areas
• Staff time spent on collecting and analysing patient feedback has dramatically reduced

“Now we will be getting timely feedback so we will be able to quickly see the impact of our actions on patient experience”.
Helen French, Project Manager

Benefits:
1. Constant real-time patient feedback is collected to ensure the hospital is constantly reviewing its services
2. A significant increase in responses together with validated data has led to policy changes 
3. Inclusion of patients from a wider range of demographics means the Trust is improving its services for all the people 
    it serves