96% of Chelsea and Westminster patients recommend the hospital to friends and family

96% of Chelsea and Westminster patients would recommend the hospital to their friends and family, according to the first month’s results of the Friends and Family Test.

The Department of Health’s Friends and Family Test is now in use on all adult inpatient wards (excluding Maternity) and in the A&E department at Chelsea and WestminsterHospital.

The Test is based on the net promoter score survey used by commercial companies. The aim is to place a greater emphasis on patient experience by enabling NHS trusts to pinpoint areas of both excellent and poor patient satisfaction and to use patient feedback to address issues.

Patients being discharged home from an adult inpatient ward or from A&E are given a postcard asking them if they would recommend Chelsea and Westminster to their friends and family based on their experience in the hospital—this question has a range of possible answers from ‘Extremely likely’ to ‘Extremely unlikely’.

Chelsea and Westminster is an ‘early adopter’ of the Friends and Family Test—it was launched in the hospital in November 2012 and of those patients who completed it in November, 96% said they were ‘Extremely likely’ or ‘Likely’ to recommend the hospital to their friends and family. The full results are available on the Friends and Family Test page.

From April 2013 the Friends and Family Test will be extended to adult inpatients and A&E patients in all hospitals in England. From October 2013 it will also cover women using maternity services and it will then it will be extended to all patients using NHS services both in hospital and other care settings.

The Government’s mandate to the NHS Commissioning Board, published in November 2012, states: “Hospitals with good scores on the Friends and Family Test will be financially rewarded. By 2015, a further part of this objective is to increase the proportion of people across all areas of care who rate their experience as excellent or very good.”