Patients rate their hospital care

90% of our patients rate the quality of care they receive at Guy’s and St Thomas’ as 7 out of 10 or higher, according to the results of the Care Quality Commission’s national inpatient survey published yesterday (Wednesday 31 May).

A sample of adult inpatients discharged from our hospitals in July 2016 gave their feedback – the overall patient satisfaction rating is 2% higher than when the survey was carried out in 2015.

Areas in which our performance has improved significantly since the 2015 survey include:

• being offered a choice of hospital food
• help from staff to eat meals
• patients feeling involved in decisions about their discharge from hospital.

The Trust’s overall performance, when compared with other trusts, is better for 3 of the 65 benchmarking indicators and about the same for the others. These are for patients:

• knowing which nurse was in charge of looking after them
• being told how to take their medication in a way they could understand
• being given clear written or printed information about their medicines.

There are also a number of areas where we need to improve, including reducing noise at night, ensuring patients have the information they need and improving their experience of transfer from hospital. These are priorities for action in 2017-18.

Dame Eileen Sills, Chief Nurse and Deputy Chief Executive, said: “I am grateful to our patients for taking the time to complete the survey and would like to thank all staff for their hard work which has led to a significant improvement in our results in a number of areas.

“I am particularly pleased that we have achieved a positive rating for patients knowing which nurse is in charge of looking after them. This has been part of our Nightingale Project to ensure that patients receive safe, effective care delivered by nurses with the utmost kindness and clear communication at all times.

“Over the last year our catering, dietetics and nursing teams have worked together to improve the quality of the food we serve and ensure patients have the assistance they need at mealtimes. We are pleased to see that this work has had a positive impact on the care we provide for our patients.

“There is still room for improvement in a number of areas which we are already taking action to address.”

The full results of the survey are available on the Care Quality Commission website.