Scottish Inpatient Patient Experience Survey 2014 Volume 1: National Results

12. Results - Overall Experience of Hospital Stay and Providing Feedback

Summary

• Overall patients rated their experience fairly positively with most patients (72%) rating their experience between 8 and 10 on a scale of 0 to 10
• Two thirds of patients, had not seen, or were not given, information explaining how to provide feedback or complain to the hospital about the care they had received.

Overall experience

12.1. When asked to rate their overall experience, most people responded positively. On a scale of 0 to 10, 72 per cent of patients rating their experience between 8 and 10 (Chart 17).

Chart 17 Overall experience

Feedback and complaints

12.2. NHSScotland and the Scottish Government are jointly committed to developing a culture of openness and transparency in NHSScotland that actively welcomes feedback as a vital source of information on what is and is not working well, and a powerful tool for improvement.

12.3. The Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011^[27] includes a new and specific right for people to complain, raise concerns, make comments and give feedback. The legislation also places a duty on the NHS to encourage, monitor, take action and share learning from the views they receive.'^[28]

12.4. This year a new question was added to the survey which asked:

• 'Did you see, or were you given, any information explaining how to provide feedback or complain to the hospital about the care you received?'

12.5. Results show that, of those who could remember, 64 per cent of the patients had not seen, or were not given, information explaining how to provide feedback or complain to the hospital about the care they had received. There was considerable variation between NHS Boards for this question, results ranging from 30 to 70 per cent.

12.6. These results follow the Scottish Health Council's 'Listening and Learning'^[29] report, which found that just over half of the people responding to their survey (who were the general public rather than patients) did not know how to complain (54%) or give feedback (53%) on their care.