Patients continue to praise services at the Trust

Patients at Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust continue to praise the services provided at the Trust, having registered more than 1000 compliments for September alone.

The Trust regularly collects feedback from patients regarding their experiences in a number of ways, to ensure that we are continuously improving our services and addressing those areas which are highlighted as needing more focus.

Liz Head, patient partnership manager at the Trust, said: “Hearing directly from patients is one of the most important things we can do to make sure we are delivering on every aspect of their journey through the hospital. It is so encouraging to receive the amount of compliments we do because it helps identify where we are doing well and to share best practice across other areas of the Trust.

“Of course we know that patients also have reasons to tell us where we need to do better and we take complaints very seriously. Our rigorous investigation process allows us to learn from our mistakes and put in as much hard work and effort into these areas”, adds Liz.

Recently, the Trust has re-launched both the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) and ‘Have your say’ leaflets which give patients all the information they need in order to contact the Trust if they want to raise a concern or pay a compliment, and are available around the hospital. The leaflets are designed to encourage people to contact us so that we have real-time evaluations of how people perceive services.

As well as writing to the Trust, patients also have the opportunity to complete regular patient experience surveys or speak to the patient safety champion who interviews them about their time in the hospital.

In September 2011, the Trust recorded 1009 compliments, which is an average of 944 per month for the year, compared to an average of 33 complaints per month for the same period.