Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The National Patient Survey Programme is one of the largest patient survey programmes in the world. It provides an opportunity to monitor experiences of health and provides data to assist with registration of trusts and monitoring on-going compliance. Understanding what people think about the care and treatment they receive is crucial to improving the quality of care being delivered by healthcare organisations. One way of doing this is by asking people who have recently used the health service to tell the Care Quality Commission (CQC) about their experiences. The CQC will use the results from the surveys in the regulation, monitoring and inspection of NHS acute trusts (or, for community mental health service user surveys, providers of mental health services) in England. Data are used in CQC Insight, an intelligence tool which identifies potential changes in quality of care and then supports deciding on the right regulatory response. Survey data will also be used to support CQC inspections. Each survey has a different focus. These include patients' experiences in outpatient and accident and emergency departments in Acute Trusts, and the experiences of people using mental health services in the community. History of the programme The National Patient Survey Programme began in 2002, and was then conducted by the Commission for Health Improvement (CHI), along with the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection (CHAI). Administration of the programme was taken over by the Healthcare Commission in time for the 2004 series. On 1 April 2009, the CQC was formed, which replaced the Healthcare Commission. Further information about the National Patient Survey Programme may be found on the CQC Patient Survey Programme web pages.
The Inpatient Survey, 2004 was designed to provide actionable feedback to each participating NHS trust on patients' views of the care they had received as in-patients, as well as providing the Healthcare Commission with patient-focused indicators to feed into the 2004 performance ratings for acute and specialist trusts. The survey was conducted between October 2003 and January 2004, but is part of the 2004 survey programme. For the second edition, the complete set of data and documentation was replaced.
Main Topics:
Topics covered included: admissions to hospital (routine and emergency); organisation of care and treatment; waiting time; courtesy of and confidence in medical and nursing staff; privacy; noise; cleanliness of bathrooms and lavatories; medical consultations; medicines and treatment prescribed and whether enough information and guidance were provided; choice and decision-making with regard to admission and treatment; clinical tests performed; information received by families and persons close to respondent, and respondents' demographic characteristics.
Simple random sample
Each of the participating trusts identified a list of 850 eligible patients. The trusts were responsible for ensuring that their survey was carried out following the standard sampling and survey procedures, as set out in the guidance issued to them.
Postal survey
