Trends Analysis Report for Royal London Hospital April to Sept 2017, Tower Hamlets

Between April and September 2017, Healthwatch Tower Hamlets produced a trend analysis report for Royal London Hospital. Between April and September 2017, Healthwatch collected and analysed comments from a total of 740 hospital service users and identified a total of 1,850 issues. The areas covered as part of this report included those shown below:

• Transport

• Reception

• Diagnosis and testing

• Clinical treatment

• Clinical nursing

• Discharge

• Follow-on

• Community care

Some of the highlighted findings from the report showed that compared with the previous report (April 2016 to March 2017), patients were more likely to feel that they receive good support at the Royal London Hospital. Patient opinion of community services offered by the Royal London had dramatically improved; and opinion of the discharge process had improved.

Transport delays and no-shows continue to be an issue negatively affecting patient opinion. Administration issues have an important negative impact on patient opinions across all stages of the care pathway. People have received inaccurate booking information, inaccurate/incomplete patient records or have failed to be notified of cancelled appointments. Some patients report their referrals from other healthcare providers have been lost or delayed.

A series of recommendations in each of the bullets above has been provided within the report. As an example we have shown a few below:

• Monitor, review and investigate providers of transport to enforce standards of punctuality, reliability and professional behaviour.

• Ensure patients are promptly informed of any delays or cancellations to the service.

• Communicate clearly with patients in order to provide reassurance that their cases are taken seriously and that they are receiving appropriate treatment.

At the time of publication there was no response received from the provider or commissioners.