Being rated by patients

[Fonenurse]

Patients in England can now rate their health care experience at http://www.patientopinion.org.uk/ and this is the way for patients to let people know how they really feel about their health care... it is anonymous, but you can leave anecdotes if you want as well as using the scoring system

• Standard of medical care
  
• Standard of nursing care
  
• Cleanliness
  
• Parking
  
• Treated with respect and dignity
  
• Information and decision making shared appropriately
  
• Service punctuality/timeliness

Now I don't know who exactly decided on these as being the markers for a 'good service', but it's a good start - I personally would like the quality of the food added as well as general information about the service - because I think "Information and decision making shared appropriately" is perhaps too broad a statement.

It's got to be a start in the patient having a voice though - what do you think?

[fergus51]

The funny thing is American companies have been doing customer feedback things like this for some time. The frustrating part is some patients don't know how to rate things properly. "Nursing care" is sometimes rated as poor because the meals weren't very tasty or the visitors weren't allowed in after certain hours or the linen isn't very nice as though the nurses have any control over that.