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

Introduction

This report explores differences in the self-reported experiences of different groups of people based on the 2015/16 Scottish Inpatient Experience Survey.

The survey covers seven specific areas of people's experience: admission to hospital; the hospital and ward; care and treatment; operations and procedures; hospital staff; arrangements for leaving hospital; and care and support services after leaving hospital.

This type of analysis will help our understanding of the differences in the healthcare service experiences between groups of patients and will assist in identifying where to target healthcare improvements.

The Inpatient Experience Survey is jointly supported by Scottish Government, Information Services Division ( ISD Scotland) ^[1] and NHS Boards. National results as well as individual reports for NHS Health Boards, including Golden Jubilee Foundation ( GJF), and hospitals were published on 30 August 2016, which can be found at the following link: www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Health/InpatientSurvey/Inpatient2016.

The Inpatient Experience Survey is one of a suite of national surveys which are part of the Scottish Care Experience Survey Programme. The surveys aim to provide local and national information on the quality of health and care services from the perspective of those using them. They allow local health and care providers to compare with other areas of Scotland and to track progress in improving the experiences of people using their services.

Information about the other national care experience surveys is available at: www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Health/careexperience

Methodology

A statistical technique was used to allow all available characteristics to be taken into account that may have an effect on the likelihood of someone reporting a positive experience. This approach does not look at one factor in isolation but takes into account all other patient characteristics which may have an effect. Further details on the methodology used for this analysis can be found at the following link: www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Health/careexperience.

Analysis was performed on the experience questions based on the range of characteristics detailed in Table 1. Some of the variables have been grouped together due to small sample sizes such as religion, ethnicity and sexual orientation. For each characteristic, response options were compared against a reference group, such as males were compared to females, and these are detailed in Table 1.

It is important to note that it is difficult to explain differences in experience as variation is a complex issue. The variation reported here could reflect real intergroup differences in the services received; or intergroup differences in subjective factors such as expectations or perceptions; or a combination of both.

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.

The report focuses on the results that are statistically significantly at the 5% level.

Table 1: Characteristics used for the analysis