National Institute for Health Research: Improving care by using patient feedback (December 2019)

Summary

Both staff and patients want feedback from patients about the care to be heard and acted upon and the NHS has clear policies to encourage this. However, doing this in practice is complex and challenging.

This report from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) features nine new research studies about using patient experience data in the NHS. These show what organisations are doing now and what could be done better. Evidence ranges from hospital wards to general practice to mental health settings.

The report found that although a lot of resource and energy goes into collecting feedback data, less goes into analysing it in ways that can lead to change or into sharing the feedback with staff who see patients on a day-to-day basis. Patients’ intentions in giving feedback are sometimes misunderstood. Many want to give praise and support staff and to have two-way conversations about care, but the focus of healthcare providers can be on complaints and concerns, meaning they unwittingly disregard useful feedback.

The report provides insights into new ways of mining and analyzing big data, using online feedback and approaches to involving patients in making sense of feedback and driving improvements.