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 Outpatients Department Survey, 2011 was designed to provide actionable feedback to each participating trust on patients' views of the care they had received in Outpatient departments in England. The survey covered issues that affect the quality of care that patients receive and were identified as being important to them. Further information may be found on the NHS Surveys Outpatient Department Survey 2011 webpage.
Main Topics:
Topics covered included: experiences before the appointment, including waiting time; waiting at the hospital; hospital environment and facilities; tests and treatment; seeing the doctor; seeing other professionals; overall experiences of the appointment; leaving the outpatients' department; background and demographic characteristics.
One-stage stratified or systematic random sample
Each NHS Trust identified 850 patients who had attended one or more of its outpatient departments in March or April or May 2011.
Postal survey
