Patients feel well informed – 2019 National Inpatient Survey results for Oxford University Hospitals

Results published by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) on Thursday 2 July from a national inpatient survey show a high level of satisfaction with services provided by Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) across our four hospitals.

Compared to other trusts, patients have scored OUH more highly in their answers to the following eight questions.

• While you were in the A&E Department, how much information about your condition or treatment was given to you?
• During this hospital stay, did anyone discuss with you whether you would like to take part in a research study?
• If you needed attention, were you able to get a member of staff to help you within a reasonable time?
• Do you think the hospital staff did everything they could to help control your pain?
• Did the doctors or nurses give your family, friends or carers all the information they needed to help care for you?
• Did a member of staff tell you about any medication side effects to watch out for when you went home?
• Were you given clear written or printed information about your medicines?
• Did hospital staff tell you who to contact if you were worried about your condition or treatment after you left hospital?

OUH’s score was about the same as most other trusts on 55 questions and was not worse than other trusts on any questions.

Sam Foster, Chief Nursing Officer at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: "We are very proud that the results of this national survey support the Trust Board view that our dedicated, professional staff work hard to deliver high quality services to all of our patients. We value patient feedback to enable us to celebrate excellence and enable learning, as this is how we know what is working and what is not. I am really pleased that this survey shows that our patients feel well informed and able to get help when they need it."

The Trust’s scores were significantly improved for five questions compared to scores last year as follows.

• While you were in the A&E Department, how much information about your condition or treatment was given to you?
• In your opinion, how clean was the hospital room or ward that you were in?
• If you needed attention, were you able to get a member of staff to help you within a reasonable time?
• Did the doctors or nurses give your family, friends or carers all the information they needed to help care for you?
• Did hospital staff tell you who to contact if you were worried about your condition or treatment after you left hospital?

(Some of these are the same questions that featured in the OUH’s good performance against other trusts). There were no areas in which the Trust’s performance was significantly reduced.

The survey was carried out by Patient Perspective, the Trust’s contracted survey provider and was then supplied to the CQC who compare results across trusts. The survey helps inform the important work the Trust does to identify areas and take feedback on where patients feel that we can improve. These results, alongside other forms of feedback, help the Trust focus on improving the overall experience of patients in hospital.

The National Inpatient Survey is part of a national survey programme run by the CQC to collect feedback on experiences of patients. The survey contains 72 questions and in 2019 was conducted in 143 acute trusts in England. It was sent to a sample of patients who spent at least one night in hospital during July 2019. 45.6% of patients responded, which is in line with the average across other trusts, which is 45.5%.