Jump in Whittington Health in-patient satisfaction

28 Aug 2024
New national survey reveals Whittington Health NHS Trust is one of the most improved in the country for patient satisfaction.
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Figures revealed by The Care Quality Commission (the regulator of health and care services in England) show that the experience of Whittington Health NHS Trust’s in-patients was amongst the most improved nationally compared to a year ago. Overall, our in-patients rated their care at 8 out of 10 up from 7.5 out of ten last year.
In related news, in what we believe to be a first, Whittington Health has featured in the pages of British Vogue. Food writer Diana Henry, has written about her experience as a patient in Whittington Hospital’s ICU and on our wards after she was admitted with COVID-19 and pneumonia. The article journals her recovery and her experiences of Whittington Health’s hospital meals, meeting our head of catering, and our nutritionists. In the article, she writes “I ate chicken tikka masala, beef stroganoff and Moroccan vegetables with couscous. I was excited for every meal, pouring my curry out of a scorching plastic tray on to a bed of rice. “You have to have the salmon with spinach,” said Carol in the bed beside me, and she was right.”
Whittington Hospital’s other patients highlighted the ability to sleep at night and being able to get help to eat meals, if they need it and being given the information they need about continuing their treatment at home whilst on the Trust’s “Virtual Ward” for particular praise.
Meanwhile patients also told us the areas that we should focus on to improve which included making it easy for patients who are hungry or peckish to get food outside of mealtimes, the length of time they had to wait to get a bed following an unplanned admission and the quality of information patients receive whilst on a waiting list for planned care.
Work is already underway to improve further based on what our patients told us in previous year’s surveys. We have recruited additional colleagues into our housekeeping teams meaning that now have a domestic team of more than 140 people ensuring everything is clean and tidy. We have seen a step-change improvement in reducing long waits in our emergency department which we hope to sustain despite the challenges of the winter period and a major project is underway to improve the communications or letters our patients receive after they are referred to us for planned care.
Speaking about the results, Whittington Health’s acting CEO, Dr Clare Dollery said: “It isn’t every day that as an NHS CEO someone comes into your office to say we’re featured in British Vogue so I was thrilled to read about Diana Henry’s positive experiences of our care. I was also delighted to that the CQC’s findings show that her positive experience mirrors that of the vast majority of our In-patients.
However, I want Whittington Health to be a place where everyone strives to learn, innovate and improve every day. So teams across the organisation will be examining what our In-patients have told us in the survey to make plans to go further and faster to ensure that every single patient, whether they are in-patients, outpatients, come to one of our centres in their community or if we go to see them at home get the very best possible experience.”