Patient feedback leads to further improvements at the RUH

Feedback from patients and visitors is helping to make improvements in departments across the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust.

The hospital encourages patients and visitors to let them know what is working well and what could be improved, with the feedback collated by the RUH's Patient Experience team.

The team then works with departments and clinical areas across the hospital to act on patient feedback and introduce improvements.

Recent improvements include:

• Improved signage - Patients said that more signage was needed to help them find the Fracture & Orthopaedic Clinic and the Trauma Assessment Unit. In response, our Estates and Facilities team installed new signs and relocated others to improve wayfinding.
• The Breast Radiotherapy Consultant Service developed a questionnaire to review the service and the information they provide to patients. As a result of the feedback, the team improved the information available for patients, ensuring they had all the information they needed about the service.
• The Osteoporosis team reviewed their patients' experience of telephone consultations. As a result of the feedback, they made changes to the information in appointment letters to explain what patients can expect at their appointment. They also ensured that appointment options for patients with a physical or sensory impairment were clear and easy to understand.
• The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) provided a questionnaire to parents to help them to understand their experience of the Psychology Support Service available in the Neonatal Unit. As a result the team improved the information about the Psychology Support Service and introduced a parents' group.

Sharon Manhi, Lead for Patient and Carer Experience, said: "We really encourage hospital teams to collect patient and carer experience feedback, and to understand and use this feedback to improve services.

"We want to make patients' experiences of the RUH as positive as possible, so we are always keen to hear what is working well or what we could be doing better.

"Thank you to everyone who takes the time to tell us about their experience - your comments are helping the RUH to continue to improve the services it offers to our patients and visitors."

The Friends and Family Test is a national NHS survey which is a simple and anonymous way for patients to give views on their experience of NHS services.

To tell us about your experience of the RUH you can complete the Friends and Family Test questionnaire.

And, as part of a pilot project being run in the hospital's A&E and Orthopaedic departments' waiting rooms, patients can now give real-time feedback about the service they are receiving from the RUH by simply scanning a QR code on their mobile device or sending a text.

They are able to give feedback on a range of different topics, from their overall experience of the waiting room and what could be improved, to the welcome they received from staff when they arrived and how well they have been communicated with during their visit.

Within A&E, QR codes and stickers have been installed on the partition screens between chairs and in the Orthopaedic department they can be found on display banners and the arms of chairs.

ENDS

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