Capturing what matters to patients when they evaluate their hospital care
- Correspondence to: Professor R Fitzpatrick, Professor of Public Health and Primary Care, Division of Public Health and Primary Health Care, Institute of Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7LF, UK; raymond.fitzpatrick{at}nuffield.ox.ac.uk
Feedback from patients needs to be more specific if problems that can be targeted for change are to be identified.
It is widely recognised that, when confronted by the increasingly common request to participate in a survey of their views, patients remain reluctant to express critical comments about the care they have received from hospital. The reasons for this reluctance are complex and include a desire not to appear ungrateful as well as recognition of inevitable limitations of health care. The results reported in this issue of Quality and Safety in Health Care by Jenkinson and colleagues1 are further evidence of this phenomenon. One month after discharge from five hospitals in Scotland, patients received a questionnaire. Most of the 65% who completed and returned their questionnaire rated the quality of their care overall as …
