Service User Surveys

Improving Healthcare Together

KGH staff have been listening closely to the views of patients and making changes to make their experience here better than ever.

 In December 2008 the hospital began a new programme of activities which has included directly asking patients what they want – via a questionnaire – and giving wards the freedom to make those changes

The programme is called “Improving Healthcare Together” and it is designed to help KGH put its vision and values around improving care into action.  And the results show that it is working. The results show that patients think care has improved in key categories such as “were you treated well, with kindness and respect”.

 The Trust is scored against catagories including:

• Were you treated well, with kindness and respect 

• Have you been involved enough in decisions about your care and treatment

• Do you understand your condition and treatment 

• Did nurses and doctors manage to make enough time for you

• Were you cared for in a same sex environment  

Staff Survey

The Healthcare Commission undertake a survey of NHS staff on an annual basis.  The latest national NHS staff survey results were published in April 2011.   

The Trust achieved high levels of performance (in the top 20% of Trusts in England) in 7 key areas.

It was in the lowest 20% of Trusts in 28 areas.

The NHS Staff Survey is a national survey carried out each year by the Healthcare Commission and is designed to help Trusts to improve the working lives of their staff by identifying areas in need of further development.

The Trust is disappointed with the results of the survey because we want all of our staff to feel they have a real say on the issues which affect the hospital and their own career.

As a result of the survey we plan to work closely with staff and trade unions to further explore these issues to find out what we need to do to engage with them in a meaningful way.

We want to improve care at this hospital and we want staff to be actively involved

The survey was carried out at Kettering General Hospital in October 2010 to January 2011 and surveys were sent to a random selection of the hospital’s staff. The results are based on 400 completed surveys. The results form part of the Trust’s Annual Health Check.  

Patient Survey

Inpatient Survey

The Trust received a positive overall report in the 2012 National Inpatient Survey released by the Care Quality Commission 16 April 2013.

KGH survey scores were compared with 156 other hospitals and given an overall grade of ‘better’, ‘about the same’, or ‘worse’ than the other hospitals on each of the questions scored.

Inpatient Survey

In the comparison KGH scored ‘about the same’ in the vast majority of questions asked (54) it scored ‘better’ than average in three areas and ‘worse’ than average in three areas.

460 KGH patients over the age of 16 took part in the survey by answering a questionnaire about the care they received while staying as an inpatient at the hospital (for at least one night) in June 2012.

Scores for each question were given out of a possible 10. Overall 60 questions were scored * .These were also divided up into ten categories – where a number of questions about the same sort of subject are averaged to give a category score. Compared to other Trusts KGH was about the same for nine categories and worse for one (Operations and procedures). Its performance had improved (albeit marginally in places) in seven out of ten of the categories in 2012 compared to 2011.

The three scores where the hospital was better than other Trusts were around hospital food, discharge delays and length of delay. The scores where the hospital was worse than other Trusts were around explaining the risks and benefits of operations/procedures, explaining what would be done in the operation or procedure, or answering questions about it.

Outpatients Survey

The outpatients survey were published in February 2012 and based on 437 patient responses. The Care Quality Commission reported that the results for the Trust had remained 'About the Same' as 2011. 

Outpatient Survey 2012

People's Experiences of Accident & Emergency

The Care Quality Commission uses national surveys to find out about the experiences of people who use NHS services

During 2012, a questionnaire was sent to 850 people who had attended an NHS accident and emergency department (A&E) during January, February or March 2012.

Responses were received from 342 people who had attended Kettering General Hospital and was published in December 2012..

Accident & Emergency