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Online Patient Feedback to Inform NHS Change
UK not-for-profit organisation Patient Opinion has launched a new web site for patients to share their experiences of healthcare and feed back comments and improvement ideas to the NHS.
The new site – www.patientopinion.org.uk – will enable people who need non-emergency surgery to select from a list of hospitals for their treatment, and view comments from other patients to help them decide which would be most suitable.
Prior to launch of the site, research conducted by London-based agency ICM found that 91% of UK adults feel that the NHS should be learning from patients' personal experiences in hospitals. Nearly three quarters (74%) said they would find it useful to be able to access a web site providing patients' reviews and comments about NHS services, if they were about to go into hospital.
Sheffield GP and Chief Executive of Patient Opinion, Dr Paul Hodgkin explained: 'We want patients to log on to the site and feed back their positive and negative experiences of hospital care in England. Patient Opinion directs patient feedback straight to the hospital managers who need to see it, for subscribing hospitals.' He added that independent feedback motivates NHS staff by providing recognition, and also helps clinicians and managers improve services.
The site has been piloted for the last 20 months across England and more than 4,000 ratings or comments about hospital service have already been posted, and approximately 350,000 pages have been viewed since March. Around 50 organisations now contribute or subscribe to Patient Opinion including Trusts, PCTs, Strategic Health Authorities, patient groups, and GPs.
ICM, which also works across the retail, government, social, financial, automotive and IT/Telecoms markets, is on the web at www.icmresearch.co.uk .
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