Island patients have given their local NHS a resounding thumbs-up in the newly published National Patients Survey.

The survey, now in its fifth year and produced by the independent Healthcare Commission, compares all NHS organisations against a total of 62 specific areas related to:

• Admission to hospital
• The hospital and ward
• Doctors
• Nurses
• Your care and treatment
• Operations and procedures
• Leaving hospital
• Overall impressions and experiences

In 21 of the 62 categories, the Isle of Wight NHS Primary Care Trust was amongst the best performing 20% of all NHS Trusts across the country during 2007. In 2006 the island NHS was in the top 20% of performers in only nine categories. Compared to the 2006 survey results, the Island NHS has improved in a total of 29 categories during 2007.

The Island NHS finds itself amongst the worst performing 20% of NHS Trusts in only five categories compared with eight in 2006.

The categories where the Island NHS was in the top performing 20% of Trust were:
• Information provided in the emergency department (A&E)
• Privacy in A&E
• Length of time waiting to be admitted to a bed on a ward after attending A&E
• Choice of admission dates
• Length of time waiting to get a bed on a ward
• Having somewhere to keep personal belongings whilst on a ward
• Choice of food
• Doctors not talking in front of patients as if they weren’t there
• Getting easily understood answers to questions asked of nurses
• Staff not giving contradictory information
• Involvement in decisions about care
• Information provided on condition/treatment
• Having a member of staff to discuss worries or fears
• Privacy when being treated or examined
• Staff explaining risks and benefits of operations or procedures
• Staff answering questions about operations or procedures
• Knowing what to expect after an operation or procedure
• Anaesthetists explaining how they would put patients to sleep or control their pain
• Involvement in decisions about discharge from hospital
• Discharge from hospital not delayed unnecessarily
• Timely discharge from hospital

The Interim Chief Executive of Isle of Wight NHS Primary Care Trust, Margaret Pratt, said: “This is a very encouraging and positive set of results from the people who know best from personal experience what our services are like – our patients.

“Our Inpatient Survey results have been improving steadily year on year and this year’s reflects great credit on staff cross the organisation who continue to keep patient care and patient experience at the heart of everything we do.

“However, there are still some areas where we know we need to improve and that has been reflected in the survey results. For example, we do need to reduce the number of occasions when male and female patients share the same facilities, give patients better information and ask them for their views on the quality of care we provide more often.”

Carol Alstrom, Director of Nursing, said: “ Reducing the frequency of patients having to share toilets and bathrooms with patients of the opposite sex is a priority for us and work is already underway to identify how we can improve the situation.”

Margaret Pratt added: “Overall, this is a very encouraging set of results and I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation to our staff for their hard work and dedication and urge them to get behind efforts to improve even further. I would also like to thank our patients for their continuing support and the feedback they have provided through this survey which is very heartening.”

Note to Editors: The Healthcare Commission 2007 Inpatient Survey results can be viewed in detail at: www.healthcarecommission.org.uk