QVH continues to receive top marks from patients in survey

The findings of the latest national NHS inpatient survey show that QVH continues to achieve some of the best feedback from patients in the country.

The annual national survey of inpatients at all NHS hospital trusts in England covers all aspects of patients’ care and treatment. The findings help the NHS to continually improve, enabling hospitals to see how they are doing year-on-year and how they compare with others.

Overall, QVH scored better than other trusts across all ten relevant sections of the survey.

QVH scored significantly better than other trusts on 46 of the 62 questions asked, about the same on 12 and worse than average on only one.

Areas where QVH scored particularly highly were the questions about the hospital’s nurses, care and treatment, leaving hospital and patients’ overall views of care and services.

QVH achieved the top scores in the country for 15 of the questions, including questions around:

• The emotional support patients received from hospital staff to aid their recovery after leaving hospital
• Staff providing a quiet environment at night
• Staff working well together
• Being involved in decisions around care and treatment and confidence about decisions made by staff
• Privacy, respect and dignity
• Providing sufficient information and getting answers to important questions that were easy to understand
• Whether staff did all they could to control pain
• Whether there were enough nurses on duty
• Opportunities to feed back.

The only question on which QVH scored worse than average was about the choice of hospital food. The hospital has been making improvements to the quality and choice of food for patients and this score had improved from the previous survey but remains a priority for the coming year.

Speaking about the results, QVH chief executive Richard Tyler said: “At QVH we strive for excellence in all we do. It is therefore very encouraging to receive such positive feedback from patients who rate the overall care and treatment at our hospital as one of the best in the country. This is thanks to the commitment and professionalism of our staff.”

QVH director of nursing Jo Thomas added: “To again get the top score for nursing care is a fabulous endorsement by our patients. We are proud to have sustained and improved the quality and care of our patients during an increasingly challenging financial time for the NHS.

“We are committed to driving further improvements in areas such as food choice. Since the survey, we have introduced new menus – providing appetising, nutritious food to a wide range of patients at varying levels of recovery.”

Between August 2015 and January 2016, a questionnaire was sent to 1250 recent inpatients at each trust. Responses were received from 567 patients at Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Full details are available at: www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RPC/surveys.