Inpatient experience survey across Saolta Hospital Group

THE fourth National Inpatient Experience Survey is now underway across the Saolta Hospital Group.

This annual survey - the largest of its kind in Ireland - offers patients the opportunity to share their experiences in hospital and tell what improvements they believe are necessary. This provides a clear picture of the safety and quality of care in Irish hospitals, as seen through the eyes of patients.

The survey contains questions on topics such as admission to hospital, care and treatment on the ward, trust in hospital staff, respect and dignity and discharge from hospital.

The survey will also ask about patients’ experiences of care during the Covid-19 pandemic, such as staff communication while wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) as well as contact with family and friends, given visitor restrictions.

An estimated 26,197 patients will be eligible to participate in this year’s survey - over 4,862 across Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Donegal and Roscommon.

Since 2017, almost 40,000 patients have completed the survey nationally.

All patients over 16 years of age who spent 24 hours or more in hospital and were discharged during the month of September are eligible to participate.

HIQA’s Director of the National Care Experience Programme, Rachel Flynn, encourages all eligible patients to participate in the survey: “It is important that as many patients as possible tell us about their experiences of care so that we can identify what is working well in our hospitals, and where improvements are needed. This will be patients’ first opportunity to provide feedback since the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on our hospitals across Ireland - as such gaining insights and feedback is especially important.

“While a number of positive changes were identified and acted on in the previous National Inpatient Experience Survey, a lot more needs to be done. It is by listening and learning from the experiences of patients that we can bring about effective and sustainable changes across the healthcare sector.”

Added Tony Canavan, CEO of the Saolta University Health Care Group: “Our hospital group is committed to further developing a culture of strong engagement with our patients and our communities. We know that listening and learning from our patients’ experience enables us to deliver better care and improves health outcomes.

“Previous survey findings have brought about many patient-focused improvement projects and we look forward to hearing directly from our patients about what is working well in our hospitals, and what areas of care we can work to improve.”

To find out more about the survey, see https://yourexperience.ie/.