Patient Survey Results 2017

 

 

• For a three week period starting on 14^th June, a survey was conducted in relation to patient experiences within the hospital.
• A questionnaire was distributed to women on admission to the prenatal, postnatal or gynaecology wards and the women were asked to complete it prior to discharge.  266 questionnaires were returned.
• There were 855 women discharged during that timeframe. Of the 266 respondents, 71.2% were attending as public patients, 20.5% private and 8.3% semi-private.

Results

• Responses from the women participating in this survey were in the main very positive. Some of the many positive aspects include when asked if, overall, the patients were satisfied with the service they received, 98.5% ticked the box for ‘Yes’.
• When invited to indicate whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement “I had confidence in the staff providing my care”, 99.2% chose either the ‘Strongly agree’ or ‘Agree’ options.
• For the statement “The information given by members of my healthcare team was easy to understand”, 98.9% chose ‘Strongly agree’ or ‘Agree’, with the figure being 99.6% for “I was always treated with dignity and respect”; 99.6% for “I trusted the members of my healthcare team” and 99.2% for “I would recommend this hospital to a friend or family member”.
• The respondents were asked to rate the Hospital facilities under five headings with five multiple-choice options available – ‘Very good’, ‘Good’, ‘Poor’, ‘Very poor’ and ‘Not relevant’.
• The rating for adequacy of public toilets showed a small change compared to the last survey, as the percentage rating this facility as ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ has decreased from 8.5% to 6.5%.
• In addition, 98.8% of patients indicated that the overall cleanliness of the hospital was ‘Good’ or ‘Very good’.  The issue of inadequate parking facilities was highlighted once again – see Table 1.

 Table 1

	Very good	Good	Poor	Very poor	Not relevant
Contacting hospital by phone	42.5%	39.8%	7.7%	2.3%	7.7%
Availability of parking facilities	13.4%	39.9%	25.7%	11.5%	9.5%
Adequacy of public toilets	39.8%	47.5%	5.0%	1.5%	6.2%
Ease of finding way (signage)	46.2%	47.7%	5.0%	0.0%	1.1%
Overall cleanliness of hospital	63.7%	35.1%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%

 

• In relation to the meals the patients received, the questionnaire enquired as to whether they had been asked if they had any special dietary requirements. 59.0% responded ‘Yes’, 28.7% ‘No’ and 12.3% indicated that they ‘Can’t remember’.  
• When asked if they were satisfied with the meals they received, 82.7% indicated ‘Yes, always’ [notably up from 73.8%]; 15.7% ‘Yes, sometimes’ [down from 23.8%] and 1.6% ‘No’ [previously 2.3%].
• When asked to indicate their level of agreement with the statement “The food I received was of a high quality”, the percentage that either ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘agreed’ was 91.4%, up from 89.4% in the previous survey.

 Comments and Suggestions

• The final question on the survey consisted of a section in which respondents were asked to provide comments relating to their recent experience of The Rotunda Hospital or make suggestions on how the hospital could improve the services it provides.
• These comments were split into categories depending on the nature of the remark. There were 74 positive comments regarding the staff, care and services provided in the Rotunda.
• There were 48 comments identifying areas for improvement: 4 relating to communication and information; 24 regarding facilities, accommodation and food; 5 pertaining to staff attitude and manner; 14 concerning safe and effective care and one in connection with privacy, dignity and respect.

Areas for Action

The draft report was reviewed by the Quality and Safety Committee and the following areas were identified for priority action:

• The multidisciplinary pain management team will develop an action plan for the coming year. They will utilise reports from MN-CMS to benchmark postnatal analgesia utilisation. They will also explore the option for a pilot of patient management of postnatal analgesia where appropriate.
• The Catering will review and monitor feedback from patients on the Gynae Ward on the food offering over the coming months.
• The direct dial phone numbers for the appointment scheduling team will be included on all appointment letters.
• Assess options in relation to developing an automated telephone answering service to address common pregnancy related queries and concerns.
• Develop and implement a customer service programme for staff dealing with telephone queries.
• Review the signage within the Rotunda campus to maximise user friendliness and ensure compliance with Official Languages Act.

 Conclusion

Overall, the responses are very similar to previous survey findings.  Chart 1 shows the trend of the percentage of respondents indicating a rating of ‘Very good’ for overall hospital cleanliness over previous surveys, with the seven new ‘patient experience survey’ values marked in red. This shows a little change since the last patient survey carried out in June 2016.

Chart 1

• An important measure is the number of patients that would recommend the Rotunda Hospital to a friend, and any trends in this variable are worthy of note.  The question asked in the initial nine patient satisfaction surveys was “Would you recommend the Rotunda Hospital to a friend?” with the two options of ‘Yes’ and ‘No’.
• The patient experience survey asks patients to indicate their agreement or otherwise with the statement “I would recommend the Rotunda Hospital to a friend or family member.
• Combining the figures for the ‘Strongly agree’ and ‘Agree’ options yields a figure of 99.2% and along with the previous PES results, is highlighted in red in Chart 2.

Chart 2

 

You can see the results of the 2016 survey here.

The next survey is scheduled for summer 2018.