What’s changed since May 6th?
The new coalition government’s plans for the NHS may not be dramatically different, but the devil’s in the detail. Here we highlight some of the differences that the NHS will have to deal with under the new administration.
Serious funding challenges
The Conservatives’ promise to protect overall NHS funding “in real terms” was an essential part of their election policy. It effectively neutralised the NHS as an issue during the election. But, as any economist will have noticed, the promise to protect funding was never going to be a promise to leave the NHS alone. Given the increasing demands on the NHS from an ageing population and the rising costs of drugs, merely keeping the overall budget constant in real terms will require some serious cuts in parts of the NHS budget. One of the most surprising pledges by the new Government is to pay for all new cancer drugs – a commitment which is likely to require deep cuts elsewhere.
Bureaucracy will be challenged more than it’s ever been
The last Government claimed to see “bureaucracy” as getting in the way of delivering an efficient health service, and the new Government is no different. However the Conservatives characterise Labour’s administration as “top-down, bureaucratic mismanagement”, and they are promising to cut administrative costs much more deeply than Labour dared to promise. The Conservative manifesto speaks of “a culture where ticking boxes is more important than giving patients the treatment they need”.
The coalition’s Programme for Government says, “We will cut the cost of NHS administration by a third and transfer resources to support doctors and nurses on the front line”. This is a terrifically ambitious pledge and will be painful to achieve.
Targets will be abandoned
Many staff will be happy that targets are being abandoned by the new Government, who plan to focus on results “which really matter” such as survival rates and infection rates, rather than what patients moan about most such as waiting times. These health outcomes should be easier to measure and monitor, and this in turn will reduce paperwork and save some costs.
GP contracts will be renegotiated
Some are forecasting a “long and bloody battle” with GPs as the new Government intends to force GPs to take back responsibility for providing care at weekends and in evenings, which in effect means refusing to honour Labour’s 2004 contract with GPs that allowed them to opt out of out-of-hours care. The intention is good – to improve standards of out-of-hours care so that it is not provided by medics who are unfamiliar with the patient, and of course to improve patient satisfaction in the process. But to provide such care GPs will need to co-operate more as part of local groups, losing some autonomy, and making lifestyle compromises in the process, something they may not do happily.
Patient satisfaction will be improved by the carrot not the stick
Reading between the lines of previous years of policy statements, Andrew Lansley seems to be just as committed to patient satisfaction as Andy Burnham has been over the last few years. And in keeping with this, the Con-Lib Programme for Government contains a pledge to “enable patients to rate hospitals and doctors according to the quality of care they received”, as well as a commitment to transparency about performance and mistakes.
However the emphasis is likely to be less on meeting patient satisfaction targets, and more on allowing patient satisfaction to speak for itself by allowing competition to reward those who deliver higher satisfaction levels. Promises include “the right to choose your GP, hospital and even the consultant responsible for your care”, something that will make patient satisfaction important but without imposing targets.
What it means for us
At PatientPulse we can see continuing opportunities for our service to meet the needs of the new NHS. Our service allows GP practices and PCTs to save administrative time and money by automating their collection of patient satisfaction data and getting rid of time-consuming and fiddly paper surveys. And PatientPulse works out an awful lot cheaper than paying for the administrative time to run a paper survey, whilst offering the easy-to-use reports which keep practices on the right track to grow patient satisfaction, and ultimately to grow patient numbers in the more competitive world where resources will be spread more thinly.
Published May 31, 2010 by Helen under Homepage, NHS news, Opinion, Patient Pulse.PatientPulse GP practice survey results
Our own survey reveals how GP practices are currently measuring patient satisfaction and getting feedback – and how this might change in the future.
In the last couple of weeks we ran a survey of 125 GP practices, with the co-operation of First Practice Management. We wanted to find out from the horse’s mouth what methods of measuring patient satisfaction were currently being used, what GP practices were considering for the future, and how much importance they placed on measuring patient satisfaction.
The results were really rather interesting.
75% of practices still using their own paper survey – but why?
A high proportion of GP practices still operate (and plan to continue operating) their own paper survey – in addition to the national postal GP Patient Survey run by the Dept of Health. 75% of practices said they did this currently, with a further 11% considering doing it in the future (the full table of results is further down this blog post).
This surprised us since there is no longer a need to do this to qualify for QOF funding. The new QOF rules for 2009/10 don’t put any weight on carrying out a survey because the national GP Patient Survey will now cover all practices. Where approx. £7,000 of QOF funding for a typical surgery used to rely upon administering a survey, and acting upon its results, this is no longer the case.
In addition, because the new GP Patient Survey will now run quarterly rather than annually it really does look like running your own paper survey is likely to duplicate effort.
So are practice-level surveys dead?
If the financial incentives for running your own survey are now gone, what’s the point of doing it?
We asked GP practices what were the reasons driving them to measure satisfaction, and only 34% said that direct financial incentives such as those in the QOF were important. A higher percentage – 45% – said that giving their staff visibility of patients’ views was an important reason. This suggests there still remains some value in it to practices.
Here’s the full table showing what practices thought were good reasons for measuring patient satisfaction:
| Factors which might make Practices consider measuring Patient Satisfaction regularly | % Practices Considering this a Good Reason |
|---|---|
| Practice management wanting to improve visibility of patient satisfaction | 45% |
| Direct financial incentives for good patient satisfaction scores | 34% |
| Patient Participation Group wanting to improve visibility of patient satisfaction | 30% |
| The threat of negative patient reviews online, leading to poor reputation | 24% |
| Fines for poor patient satisfaction scores | 20% |
| The abolition of practice boundaries, leading to increased competition for patients | 13% |
| Dept of Health encouragement | 8% |
In fact, we think that the QOF changes are great for practices. They mean that practices no longer have to follow strict rules about carrying out surveys that are representative of their patients – so they are free to introduce new methods such as online & mobile methods. But practices still have a strong interest in finding out what their patients think, as their scores in the GP Patient Survey still count towards QOF funding. What practices can do is complement the GP Patient Survey with different ways of getting feedback from patients – more ‘real time’ feedback, which they can review on a weekly or monthly basis to track improvements, and more qualitative feedback which is not captured by the GPPS. Importantly, practices can avoid the administrative burdens put upon them by paper surveys and concentrate on methods which are much less administratively heavy.
Online feedback expected to grow
Here’s the full table of results showing what methods of patient feedback gathering practices currently use, and are considering:
| Methods of Measuring Patient Satisfaction | % Practices Currently Using | Further % Practices Considering for Future |
|---|---|---|
| 1 ) Face-to-face interviews by your staff | 25% | 19% |
| 2 ) Face-to-face interviews by third party company | 2% | 1% |
| 3 ) Paper survey on your premises | 69% | 11% |
| 4 ) Paper survey by post | 18% | 19% |
| 5 ) Online feedback via your website | 24% | 32% |
| 6 ) Online feedback via a third party survey company | 2% | 2% |
| 7 ) Online survey sent to patients by email | 1% | 16% |
| 8 ) Text message feedback | - | 6% |
| 9 ) Smart phones (eg Blackberry/iPhone applications) | - | 2% |
| 10 ) Terminals or handhelds on your premises | 2% | 8% |
| None of the above | 10% | 5% |
| Any of 3 ) or 4 ) | 75% | 11% |
| Any of 5 ) or 6 ) or 7 ) | 25% | 34% |
| Any of 8 ) or 9 ) or 10 ) | 2% | 13% |
You’ll notice that just 25% of GP practices use online methods of capturing patient feedback and measuring satisfaction, but that 34% are considering this for the future – a growth area. Music to our ears!
If you’re one of the GP practices currently doing a paper survey, consider ditching it for something that takes up less administrative time, and that offers you ‘real time’ information and qualitative patient views.
Download Survey press release and data tables
Published February 23, 2010 by Helen under Information, Opinion, Patient Pulse.Tags: NHS funding, patient feedback, patient satisfaction, QOF, real-time feedback
New dashboard overview
We’ve just upgraded the dashboard overview screen to give a more useful snapshot of patient satisfaction.
The report is designed to provide a monthly overview and will convey essential information for your practice management meetings.
The top of the screen displays a colour coded performance chart for the current month, broken down by category. Problem areas clearly show in red, while areas where you are performing well show in green. Click through from the area title to explore and export the underlying data.
To help identify trends, we have included an at-a-glance monthly overview for the past 12 months.
Below the summary chart you will find recent comments grouped into Negative, Neutral and Positive categories. These comments should help provide context to the headline numbers and clearly show the most important aspects of the clinic operation as seen by the patients. The full question data, including comments, can be viewed and exported from the Individual Surveys screen.
Tags: patient satisfaction dashboard, real-time feedback, Upgrades
Changes for 2010
Can you believe that we’re knocking on the door of 2010? While we’ve had a great 2009, we’ve already started looking ahead to some changes that we’re going to make in the New Year.
Simplified pricing
Effective immediately, we’ve introduced a simplified pricing structure. We now offer our complete service to GP and dental practices for a flat rate of £299 for 6 months, and £399 for 12 months (plus a £120 setup fee payable is your practice hasn’t used PatientPulse before). The packages include unlimited web and mobile web (Phone, Blackberry, Android, Windows Mobile) surveys, plus up to 100 text message surveys per month.
Polyclinic and hospital pricing remains bespoke. Please contact us to discuss your requirements.
New dashboard reports
We’re set to roll out an improved dashboard in January. The new overview screen will show an at-a-glance overview of how you are performing and provide the ideal report for your monthly practice management meetings.
New product for cosmetic / elective procedures
Early 2010 will also see the launch of a new PatientPulse product designed to track the satisfaction of patients undergoing cosmetic or elective procedures such as laser eye surgery, cosmetic surgery and hair replacement therapy.
The core of the service is a survey conducted just prior to discharge after the treatment, and then an automated follow-up some months later. The double survey approach captures immediate patient data at the point of experience, and then results driven data and reflective commentary when the surgery has had full effect.
We are currently trailing the service, and will publish further details in late January / early February.
2010 is going to be a busy year. Until then, the PatientPulse team would all like to wish you a very merry Christmas.
Published December 7, 2009 by Paul under Patient Pulse.Tags: features, pricing, products
Time is of the essence
Timing is critical when you’re capturing patient satisfaction data for your GP or dental practice. When you capture a patient’s views can be just as important as what you’re capturing.
Most surveys get the timing all wrong
Most patient surveys used by GP and dental practices ask patients to recall their last visit – possibly several months ago. For instance, this is true of the GP Patient Survey, the postal survey common to all GP practices. The feedback received in this way is often half-remembered, and ends up being based on general impressions rather than specific experiences.
“Real time” is the right time
“Real-time” patient satisfaction information, captured on the same day as the patient uses the service, is likely to be much more accurate – and colourful. It’s therefore likely to be much more useful to practices that are serious about looking for ways to improve.
How to get the timing spot-on
So how can you get “real-time”, really useful, patient opinions?
Short and snappy text message “micro-surveys” are a great way of getting quick, simple feedback from patients at the point of delivery, or shortly afterwards. This is what PatientPulse offers, and it’s a great way to complement more detailed postal surveys.
Using delay to your advantage
But there’s more to getting the timing right. PatientPulse allows you to build in a delay between asking patients to opt in, and asking the question. So patients can opt in to the survey while they’re in the waiting room, while they have time on their hands, and can read your posters at their leisure. Then you can build in a 1, 2 or 3 hour delay before you ask the question by text message. By delaying the survey, you can ensure the patient has completed their appointment and treatment, but it’s still fresh in their memory.
Fit in with the patient’s own timescale
Patients vary in the time they have available, and in which methods they find convenient to answer your questions. PatientPulse also allows you to work around the time the patient has – allowing them to answer questions online, when they get home, where they can also add more detailed comments.
Equally those patients with web-enabled phones such as iPhones or Blackberries are able to access specially repurposed pages on their phones. All to make sure that patients can contribute their opinions at their own leisure and to their own timetable.
Published October 23, 2009 by Helen under Patient Pulse.Tags: patient feedback, patient satisfaction, real-time feedback
