Young patients and their carers have rated the Trust a good place to receive care in the latest national Children and Young People’s Survey, published on 28 November.
The survey covers both inpatients and day cases, and asks 63 key questions about the experience of coming into hospital, the ward, staff, facilities, operations and procedures, medicines and pain management.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC), who publish the survey, identified the Trust as one of only five in England that performed “much better than expected” in the eight to 15 age category.
The Trust’s results were also “better than expected” for children aged up to seven years old. Combined, it means the Trust is one of only two London trusts, along with Moorfields Eye Hospital, and six nationwide achieving “much better than expected” results for young patients.
There were also some significant improvements in the Trust’s score since the last survey two years ago, including:
- 96 per cent of parents/carers rated their child’s care as 7/10 or higher – up from 88 per cent in the previous survey. Nearly half rated their care at 10/10.
- A 50 per cent increase in the number of parents who felt they were kept fully informed about their child’s care
The survey involved 132 acute and specialist NHS trusts across England. Between January and April 2017, questionnaires were sent out to a sample of children and young people (and their parents or carers) who attended hospital in November and December 2016 as inpatients or day case patients.
Compared to other trusts, Royal Brompton and Harefield hospitals scored well, with ratings that were “significantly better” than the national average on 23 of the questions, and the rest being in line with the rest of the country.
Key areas where our scores were significantly higher than other trusts included:
- how well staff kept young people and their families informed and involved in their care
- how available staff were when a child needed attention, pain relief, or someone to play with
- the level of dignity and respect shown to young patients and their families
- the overall experience of receiving treatment in our hospitals.
Jan McGuinness, director of patient experience and acting chief operating officer, said: “These results show the Trust is a national front-runner in the care provided to younger patients and everyone in our hospitals who works with children, young people and their families should be very proud of these results.”