West Suffolk Hospital seeks patients’ views on standards of care

February 7^th, 2002

The West Suffolk Hospitals NHS Trust in Bury St Edmunds is asking people who have recently been in-patients for their views on the quality of care provided by the hospital.

As part of an NHS survey of all acute hospitals, questionnaires have been sent this week to 850 recently discharged patients to gather information that will help improve the quality of hospital services. The patients have been chosen at random to ensure valuable feedback about a wide selection of services provided by the hospital.

The questions have been set by Government Ministers, and cover topics such as the admission process, staff attitudes, food quality and cleanliness.

The results of the survey will be returned to the Government and will form part of the star rating criteria to be published this summer.

"This survey will give us valuable information about patients experiences of their time in the hospital and their views on the services we provide," said Nichole Day, Director of Nursing & Community Relations. "We are very interested in the information we receive from the questionnaires and will actively use it to improve the quality of patient care where necessary. I would stress how useful it will be for everyone receiving a questionnaire to complete and return it to the Trust as soon as possible.

"We intend to undertake these surveys annually to allow us to monitor year on year progress with patient satisfaction with the Trust’s services."