Inpatient experience survey 2016, volume 3: exploring differences in experience

Conclusions

This analysis was performed to ensure that when determining the effect of one characteristic on patient experience, all other characteristics which may also have an influence are taken into account. The analysis identified differences in the experiences of patients from different groups, however, due to the complexity of the findings readers are advised to consider overall patterns and avoid over-interpretation of the individual results.

In general, the following characteristics have an effect on large sections of the inpatient experience survey:

• Health status (Fair and poor were significantly more negative)
• Pre-existing health condition (significantly more negative)
• Age (Older people were significantly more positive)
• Gender (Males were significantly more positive)
• Planned admission (Emergency admissions were significantly more negative)
• Type of hospital (People attending Other, General and Community were significantly more positive, Large General were significantly more negative)
• SIMD (People living in SIMD 4 and SIMD 5 (least deprived) were significantly more negative)

Discussion

Health status affects the largest proportion of the questions asked with those reporting fair or poor health being more negative. Pre-existing health conditions also affects a large portion of questions which suggests that health status has more of an influence on patient experience than other characteristics.

Older people are more likely to be positive than younger people and males are more likely to be positive than females. It is unclear if the difference is due to younger people or females receiving poorer services or if it reflects different expectations between the different groups.

People who were admitted to hospital as an emergency were more likely to report a negative experience across the survey. This may be due to these people having higher levels of anxiety, stress and confusion associated with being admitted in an emergency situation.

Differences are seen between the various SIMD ranks, with people living in SIMD 4 or SIMD 5 (least deprived) being more negative than SIMD 1 (most deprived). It is unclear why this is the case and may be due to differences in expectations.

These findings are similar to those found from previous research ^[3] . Similar variation analysis ^[4] was conducted on Inpatient Experience Survey 2010, although due to changes between the 2010 and 2016 survey questions, as well as the characteristics analysed, direct comparisons cannot be made.