YEOVIL NEWS: Hospital given thumbs up by patients

YEOVIL District Hospital has welcomed the results of the latest NHS inpatient survey - with the vast majority of local patients reporting an overwhelmingly positive experience.

Nearly 450 people who were admitted into the hospital during 2013 responded to the survey, conducted by the national care watchdog the Care Quality Commission.

They were asked 70 questions about every element of their hospital experience, from arrival to discharge, with the results combined to provide a percentage score for each question.

Results from the inpatient survey are used by the hospital to inform decisions about care services, the hospital environment, and the workforce. They also help the hospital gauge whether the patient experiencing is improving year-on-year.

This year saw improvements in patient satisfaction across more than half of the survey questions asked. These included some key areas such as choice of food, privacy, emotional support, and the way in which staff communicated with patients about important things, such as the risks and benefits of operations.

Other headlines from this year’s survey include:

* 74 per cent of patients said the hospital was ‘very clean’, with a further 23% describing it as ‘fairly clean’.

* 83 per cent of patients said their wait for a hospital appointment was no longer than they thought necessary.

* 65 per cent of patients said the food was ‘very good’ or ‘good’.

However, 24 per cent of people said that more information could have been provided to family members of carers to enable them to better support them after they were discharged from the hospital.

Paul Mears, chief executive of Yeovil Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: “There are some very positive things to take away from these results, as well as some areas where we clearly need to focus our attention.

“We’re particularly pleased to see improvements in important areas such as privacy, communication, and the emotional support we provide to patients. The high overall score, which the majority of our patients gave us, also demonstrates that we are providing a good experience across the whole hospital.”

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