Wednesday 21^st October 2009

Better Together Patient Experience Programme calls for patients’ views

A number of patients who have received care in the Western Isles over the last 12 months will soon be asked for their experiences of services to help target improvements.

NHS Western Isles is undertaking a process during January 2010 of surveying a number of patients who have been in either Western Isles Hospital, St Brendan’s Hospital or Uist and Barra Hospital over the past 12 months. The survey is being carried out as part of the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland’s Better Together Programme.

Better Together is Scotland’s Patient Experience Programme. It supports the NHS Board, frontline staff and patients in driving forward service improvement. The Better Together Programme highlights a commitment by the Scottish Government and NHS to delivering patient-centred care based on a mutual ethos where staff and patients are co-owners of the NHS and have a greater say in the way services are delivered.

NHS Western Isles and NHS Highland have joined together to deliver a cost effective method of collecting patients’ experiences. This will be delivered with the help of an Approved Contractor who will send out questionnaires to patients.

The results of the surveys will be used by the Scottish Government and each Health Board to see where things are going well and where there is need for improvement with local information being used by NHS Western Isles to inform the Board and improve service delivery.

Residents who have stayed overnight in hospital will be randomly selected to be sent a patient survey to find out more about their experiences. Patients will be asked to participate, but involvement will be entirely voluntary. The information provided by individual patients will be confidential and individual patients will not be identifiable in the results given back to Health Boards.

Nigel Hobson NHS Western Isles Interim Nurse Director/Chief Operating Officer said: “No one knows more about the experience of receiving care than our patients. They’re the experts. Better Together will use an evidence-based approach, and this survey will discover exactly how patients experience their care. Better Together will help NHS Western Isles to tap into real life patient experience, supporting the delivery of a programme of continuous improvement which will, in turn, deliver high quality, safe and effective patient-centred care.”

John Angus MacKay, Chair of NHS Western Isles, added: “Receiving feedback from patients about what they think about the service they received will help us to focus on areas for improvement, and further develop services that patients are satisfied with. This will help us ensure that patients who stay overnight in hospital in the Western Isles have a positive experience.”