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Chapter Two: Method
Sampling
2.1 All Chief Executives from NHS Boards in Scotland with direct patient contact were invited to take part in the research. In addition, at least one other person in each Board was interviewed. This was usually the person with the greatest responsibility for patient experience within the Board, and, where more than two people were interviewed in one Board, the additional person was someone with direct or particular experience of implementing patient experience work.
Procedure
2.2 At the beginning of the project, Chief Executives were sent a letter from the Chief Nursing Officer, outlining the purpose of the project and informing them that a researcher would call to arrange an interview. Chief Executives were also asked to name one primary contact person for the researchers. In most cases, but not quite all, the named contact person was also the second interviewee. In a few cases, the named contact person recommended that someone else would be a more appropriate interviewee.
2.3 Potential interviewees were contacted by telephone to arrange a suitable time for a telephone interview. They were called back at the agreed time and a semi-structured interview was carried out, while the researcher made notes. Shortly after the interview was completed, the researcher sent the interviewee a copy of the interview notes, asking that they check them for accuracy. In all cases, interviewees made only minor amendments before returning the agreed interview notes.
Interviewees
2.4 This report covers 35 interviews. Sixteen were with Chief Executives, covering all but one of the territorial Boards and three of the Special Boards: Scottish Ambulance Service, NHS24 and the Golden Jubilee Hospital. An interview was carried out with the Chief Executive from the remaining territorial Boards, but it was not possible to obtain an approved version of that interview due to the time constraints.
2.5 The remaining interviewees were other representatives of each of the geographical boards and all four of the Special Boards that have direct contact with patients, the additional special board being State Hospitals. These included:
- eight Nurse Directors
- an Associate Director of Nursing
- an Assistant Director of Nursing
- a Director of Communications
- a Director of Corporate Planning and Policy
- a Quality Manager
- a Clinical Governance Co-ordinator
- a Community Health Partnership ( CHP) Manager, a Service Improvement Manager
- an Involving People Facilitator
- a Patient Focus Manager and
- a Head of Patient Affairs.
Interview topics
2.6 The interviews covered the following topics:
- patient experience activities;
- preferences for qualitative and quantitative patient experience information;
- criteria for a good patient experience tool or measure;
- learning for patient experience information;
- benchmarking;
- motivations for using patient experience information for quality improvements;
- barriers to using patient experience information and implementing change,
- examples of measured changes
- expectations of the forthcoming Better Together programme; and
- views on patient priorities
Analysis
2.7 The verified interview notes were manually coded and initial themes were identified by the interviewer. After discussion between the interviewer and one other researcher, the themes were modified and reduced by merging them where responses were sufficiently similar. Where appropriate, the number of interviewees that had responded in a similar way were counted, so that statements such as, "about half of/most respondents said…" could be made.
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