Patient Experience Survey: Royal Stoke University Hospital - Outpatients Departments

Healthwatch Stoke on Trent conducted a survey gathering over 1000 peoples views on how to improve the experience of people in Stoke-on Trent when they are referred to the Outpatient Clinics at the Royal Stoke University Hospital.

The research was completed in collaboration with the Royal Stoke University Hospital. The survey was completed by a Task and Focus group that was staffed by a mixture of Healthwatch staff members and volunteers.

The key themes that surveyed were, referrals, appointments, communication, parking, waiting times, service quality, diagnosis and treatment, dignity and respect, and reception service.

Only 55% of patients had been referred from their GP, other notable referrals were, maternity, opticians, accident and emergency and other clinics. 83% felt they had been referred promptly, one third of patients had over 5 visits before being referred. Nearly 85% of patients indicated they were happy with the organisation of their appointments but the results varied across different departments.

Car was the main method of transportation to the hospital with 81% travelling in this way of these, 75% of them got to park where they wanted but results varied across departments with maternity at 48%. Nearly 28% of the additional responses related to parking issues were varied but patients seemed aware of problems.

Overall patients seemed happy but 84% of patients found the receptionist helpful and only 49% found them courteous. Patients were called in late for appointments 55% of the time, of these only 44% had a reason for why they were called in late.

During appointments patients felt listened to, at ease and that they were given enough privacy, but 27% felt that they did not have the side effects of medication explained to them showing room for improvement and 22% were not explained of dangerous signs to be looking out for at home.

Investigative procedures survey responses were low (n54) although 87% of patients reported being satisfied with the conduct of the staff undertaking the procedure.

The report made eight recommendations: to undertake some work to better understand the referral process, to build on the good work made with communication with patients around the information they need for appointments, to investigate priority parking around clinics identified as an issue in the report, update signage for the respiratory clinic as some could not find it, revisit the effectiveness of the call system for the fracture, maternity and scanning clinic, review seating in haematology and urology as sometimes they have been short, more work to be done to understand the communication between clinic staff and patients as the number of responses was low, the evidence is suggesting a variance of quality.

There was a response from the University Hospitals of North Staffordshire: The trust is currently looking to improve the availability of wheelchairs near disabled bays, the report will be shared with outpatient teams to consider ways to improve signage, calling systems and seating, and a number of communication initiatives are under way to improve the quality and consistency of interactions between clinical staff and patients/relatives/carers.