Health and care experience survey 2017 to 2018: technical report

6. Data Entry and Fieldwork Quality Control

Data Capture

Once respondents had received the initial letter, they could complete the questionnaire online or via the survey helpline. Data from these responses was captured automatically for the online questionnaire, or by the helpline team for telephone completions.

Following the reminder letter, paper copies of questionnaires received were logged and scanned on a daily basis by staff at Quality Health Ltd. A verification process was then carried out for each batch scanned and a number of integrity checks were undertaken to ensure that the scanning process had worked correctly and all data had been captured as expected.

Data from online questionnaires is automatically stored alongside the data from the paper questionnaires, and held separately from the names and addresses of people who were sampled for the survey.

Verification and Upload Process

Once captured, all data are checked in house by Quality Health Ltd according to pre-set verification rules, by staff who have been given training and detailed instructions about the survey. The data entry system ensured that only valid answer codes for each question could be entered and that the correct data appeared in each field. Other checks included ensuring that numeric data was the correct format and that fields were not truncated in error.

Once the survey responses were transferred to ISD and SG statisticians, further validation checks were run on the data to ensure data integrity was maintained.

Secure Disposal

The names and addresses of people who were selected for the survey were stored securely by Quality Health Ltd until the end of the fieldwork period. They were then destroyed.

Once processed, all returned questionnaires were immediately stored by Quality Health Ltd in labelled containers and archived in a secure room on-site until they reached their agreed destruction date. Once destroyed a certificate of destruction was provided.

Free Text Comments

The survey asked respondents if there was anything else that they would like to tell us about their experiences of their local GP practice, Out of Hours health care, or care and support services.

Just over 67,000 respondents left comments with approximately 40,000 relating to the GP practice, roughly 13,000 relating to Out of Hours Healthcare, and roughly 4,000 relating to care and support services.

Disclosive details that could be used to identify people were suppressed when the comments were entered by staff at Quality Health Ltd. These details included personal names, addresses, medical conditions and dates. Staff names were also suppressed.

Quality checks were undertaken on records to ensure that the instructions for suppressing disclosive details were followed.

Analysis on the free text comments will be carried out and reported separately from the national results published on 24 April 2018.