NHS must act on mental health patient feedback

Researchers from the University of Birmingham have made a series of recommendations for improving the way that NHS mental health trusts collect and use patient feedback to improve the quality of care for mental health inpatients.

A team of academics from the university, alongside those from Warwick, Sheffield and Queen Mary University of London, interviewed staff and patients across NHS mental health trusts in England and found that few are collecting patient feedback to actively improve services.

Of those trusts that do, only a quarter put their feedback to good use but, still only used it to create environmental rather than change to care services.

A new policy briefing, Evaluating the Use of Patient Experience Data to Improve the Quality of Inpatient Mental Health Care’ (EURIPIDES), found that service improvements should never be led by complaints alone; but by listening to what works well for patients, NHS trusts have a real opportunity to empower both staff and patients.

Sarah-Jane Fenton, a researcher in the School of Social Policy at the University of Birmingham, said: “All NHS Mental Health Trusts are required to collect patient feedback, but prior to this study, we did not have an understanding of how they were using this information. This is the first study to look at how patient experience feedback is used in inpatient mental health settings to drive change and improve the quality of services.

“The key message from this study is that no one is too unwell to tell you how they are experiencing their daily care - this combats some of the myths that persist resulting in people not seeking feedback from inpatients in mental health services in order to inform quality improvement work.”