Patients getting a say on hospitals

Tony Ryall and Jo Goodhew announced:

From July, patients will have the opportunity to provide feedback and rate their experiences in hospital – a move welcomed by Health Minister Tony Ryall and Associate Health Minister Jo Goodhew.

“DHBs will be running a quarterly survey of patients to find out what they think about their most recent stay in hospital,” says Mr Ryall.

“The survey has 20 questions covering issues such as whether patients understood the advice they were given by their doctor, whether they were involved in decisions about their care and treatment, and whether they were treated with respect and dignity by hospital staff.

“Responses will be collated to give each DHB a rating out of 10 in four areas: coordination, partnership, communication, and physical and emotional needs,’ says Mr Ryall. 

Mrs Goodhew says this will be the first time this information has been collected and measured in the same way across the whole country.

“The results will help DHBs to make improvements in care and give the public valuable insights into the performance of their local health services,” says Mrs Goodhew

“The new survey, which was developed by the Health Quality and Safety Commission, will be an important way of measuring the quality of health services.

That’s a very good idea – both getting patient feedback, but also having comparable data across hospitals.

Of course that data may be used to make one of those evil league tables, so I guess some parties will be against it!