Patient feedback not benefiting service improvement

A study by the National Institute for Health Research has warned that the NHS is spending millions encouraging patients to give feedback but the information gained is not being used effectively to improve services.

As shared with The Independent, the research found that the widespread collection of patient comments is often ‘disjointed and standalone’ from efforts to improve the quality of care, with the  feedback given often reduced to simple numbers. To compound the issue, in many cases, the NHS lacks the ability to analyse and act on the results.

Furthermore, the NIHR found that the NHS had a ‘managerial focus on bad experiences’, meaning that positive comments on what went well were ‘overlooked’.

The NIHR report said: “A lot of resource and energy goes into collecting feedback data but less 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. The costs of collecting patient feedback (ie staff time) far outweighed efforts to use the findings to drive improvement in practice at present.”

The NIHR report used online ratings as well as real-time feedback in different settings, from hospital wards to GPs and mental health providers.