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Chapter Four: Conclusions
4.1 Overall, attitudes towards patient experience activities were positive and interviewees welcomed Better Together Scotland's Patient Experience Programme. Their main concerns about the programme were that there would be too strong a focus on targets and it could impose too great a bureaucratic burden.
4.2 Most interviewees were interested in both quantitative and qualitative information about patients' experiences, but where they expressed a preference for one type of information, qualitative information was viewed more positively and it was thought to be particularly useful for inspiring and driving quality improvements. However, those who had carried out postal questionnaire patient experience surveys tended to give greater value to this type of quantitative information.
4.3 Self-completion questionnaire surveys were the most common patient experience activity taking place in Scottish NHS Boards. Surveys were the most trusted source of accurate information about patients' experiences.
4.4 Quantitative information was valued for its use in benchmarking and highlighting areas of concern or excellence and most interviewees said they would be interested in benchmarks, either with the rest of Scotland, or with Boards similar to their own. Their main concerns about benchmarks were that they might not be fair comparisons and that they might lead to complacency.
4.5 Perceived barriers to implementing changes as a result of patient feedback included defensiveness from clinical staff, a lack of a patient-centred culture within the Board, lack of time, lack of the right skills, competing priorities, not knowing what to do with patient experience findings, and difficulties ensuring that methods of measuring experiences were sufficiently rigorous.
4.6 Many Board representatives volunteered interesting and inspiring examples of changes they had implemented as a result of patient feedback. About half of the changes implemented were supported by evidence of improvement in patients' experiences.
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