 Survey Consultation
During
2016 we launched a consultation to ask for feedback on proposals to shape the
NHS Patient Survey Programme over the next two years. The results of our public consultation have
been published on the CQC website:http://www.cqc.org.uk/content/nhs-patient-survey-programme
We
asked for feedback on seven proposals regarding survey frequency and content,
and also asked for further suggestions to improve the value of the programme.
At least 70%
of respondents agreed to six of the seven proposals we put forward, which
included exploring the potential to extend the coverage of the A&E survey
to include other Urgent and Emergency Care services, incorporating a survey of
Children and Young People as a regular survey within the programme, continuing
to run the Adult Inpatient and Community Mental Health Services surveys
annually and delivering maternity, A&E and Children’s surveys every two
years.
Significant
interest was generated by a proposal to discontinue the Outpatient survey.
Forty four percent of respondents agreed with a proposal to cease the
outpatient survey in its current format and to incorporate questions on
outpatient experience within the Adult Inpatient survey, 34% disagreed and 22%
neither agreed nor disagreed. Concerns that
were raised about the impact of our proposal included:
- The
impact on the length and response rates to the inpatient survey from including
questions on outpatient experiences.
- The
focus on only specific outpatient experiences which are most likely to be
focussed on follow up visits rather than, for example, the management of long
term conditions that do not require inpatient stays.
In response to
this feedback, in 2017, we intend to run
a pilot study of how we can include outpatient experiences into the survey that
mitigates, as far as possible, the concerns raised.
We
have also committed to investigating three further improvements:
- Ways in which we are able to reduce
the time from sampling to publication.
This would increase the timeliness of the findings and increase the
amount of time providers have to develop actions plans in response to any
annual survey.
- Exploring whether we are able to
produce location (hospital) level data where samples sizes are sufficient to
support reporting at a more granular level.
- Ways to improve the impact and use of
the survey programme in supporting improvement in people’s experiences of the
quality of the care they receive.
Look
out for further newsletters as we report back on progress against these
commitments.
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Upcoming Surveys
Children’s Inpatient and Day Case Survey 2016
First questionnaires are being sent out over the next few weeks for this survey, and the survey will run until 2nd June. Children and young people aged 0-15 years are eligible for the survey if they were admitted to an NHS acute hospital during November and December 2016.
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We’re really grateful to all those who have helped with the development of the original 2014 survey (building on a questionnaire designed by The Picker Institute Europe), and helped us refresh this for the 2016 version. In particular the children and young people who have scrutinised the topics we focus on, how we ask questions, and the design of the questionnaires (including the quality of the illustrations).We’d like to share a blog post by Joe Pusey, a member of the NHS Youth Forum who attended the Children and Young People’s Survey Advisory Group for the 2016 survey. He said:
Youth voice is important when we're evaluating services in the same way that it’s useful to have representation from all the stakeholders in a service; everyone has very different experiences and it's hard to know what you're not aware of about other people's experiences. Sounds obvious, but for various reasons- some valid, some not so valid, the voices of young people have historically been excluded when feeding back about their own care on an individual level and also when thinking about how we evaluate care on a systemic level- which is why I think it's a really good idea to have youth representation at a meeting like this one. Without that knowledge, it's a fairly impossible task to design a survey that wants to measure the effectiveness of children's inpatient services.
It was also effective because of the diversity of expertise that was present at the meeting, which made it I think the best example of youth voice inclusion I've found. [By asking specific questions] You make it very easy to incorporate young people's feedback into the everyday workings of the NHS, which is something that can be very difficult to do if you just ask for general opinions on the organisation as a whole, given the enormous time and financial pressures that everyone working in it is under.
Thank you to Joe for highlighting the importance of having children and young people involved in developing the survey.
 Adult Inpatient Survey 2016
All fieldwork for this survey is now complete and analysis is underway. We shall be publishing results in May/ June 2017 with the exact date to be confirmed shortly. The publication date will be posted on our surveys webpage.
Following on from our consultation commitment, for the first time results will be provided at hospital level (alongside all standard outputs e.g. reporting at the level of NHS trust and England overall).
Adult Inpatient Survey 2017
Development has started on this survey and we held our first Advisory Group in January. Thank you to everybody who contributed to the excellent discussion. Proposals for new questions are being considered, though we would expect many questions would remain the same to retain comparability. We are also looking at redeveloping our question asking patients about their long-term conditions in time to launch in this survey. If successful, this new question would feature in all surveys going forward.
We will also be piloting two interventions to maximise response rates alongside the core survey, subject to necessary ethical and Section 251 approvals. More detail on this to follow next time.
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 Community Mental Health Survey 2017
Trusts have begun drawing samples for fieldwork, and all guidance materials have been published on the NHS surveys website: http://www.nhssurveys.org/surveys/1015. Fieldwork will run between 20th February – 23rd June 2017.
Alongside the main survey, we are also running a pilot with a selection of trusts to test whether new interventions can help boost response rates. This includes:
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Redesigned covering letters. The letters accompanying the questionnaires have been redesigned with a less formal tone and motivational messaging differing across letters and with more colour.
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Redesigned questionnaire. As per the main survey, this is an 8-page booklet style questionnaire and contains exactly the same questions and response options. It differs from the main survey in that it will be in colour and will have different layout and formatting and reduced text on the front page.
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Redesigned CQC flyer. Two new flyers will be tested, one will be sent out to those aged 18-35; a second version will be sent out to everyone aged 36+. The redesigned CQC flyer is a targeted intervention and was developed in response to the 2016 data which showed that those aged 18-35 are significantly less likely to respond to the survey than any other demographic group.
- New pre-approach mailer. A folded down card which will be gum-sealed on the other three sides will be sent to recipients a week prior to the first survey pack being sent out.
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Maternity Survey 2017
Development for the 2017 survey is now complete, and you can find the final report here: http://www.nhssurveys.org/surveys/1063. The survey has now received ethical approval from the Health Research Authority. Subject to final Section 251 approval materials supporting implementation of the survey, and a copy of the questionnaire will be posted on www.nhssurveys.org in March.
Publication overview
We will be publishing the results of five patient surveys this year. Exact publication dates are confirmed at least one month in advance, but an overview of expected publication month can be found below.
Survey publications 2017 (subject to final confirmation)
Acute Trusts:
2016 Inpatients Survey - June 2017
2016 Emergency Department Survey - July/August 2017
2016 Children and Young Patients Survey - October 2017
2017 Maternity Survey - December 2017
Mental Health Trusts:
2017 Community Mental Health Survey - December 2017
Feedback
As the number of
subscribers to our newsletters grows, we’d welcome feedback on the types of
information you would like to see within these updates. Please send us your
thoughts to mailto:patient.survey@cqc.org.uk
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