What people think of the NHS
 A study of the experiences of NHS patients has revealed that people in the north east of England are the most positive about the NHS, while people in London are the least positive. It also discovered that older people are significantly more positive than younger people, while those who report they are most unwell are likely to be more negative.
A spokesman for the Healthcare Commission, which carried out the survey, said that the watchdog will use the findings to better understand the factors that affect the quality of patients' experience of NHS services.
The study is based on analysis of five of the Commission’s recent surveys of patients covering 568 NHS organisations and more than 312,000 patients across England. Overall, the report concludes that differences in the way people respond to surveys can be partly explained by consistent factors such as age, where they live and how well they are.
The report identifies that self-reported health status, or how well people say they are, is the biggest factor explaining differences in experience across all five surveys. It points out that people who are most unwell often have more complex needs and more exposure to health services. It says this appears to increase the chances of patients having negative experiences.
Older people tend to be relatively positive about their NHS care. For example, people under 35 and staying in hospital were more negative about their experience than those staying in hospital and over 60. The Commission says the more positive responses from older people may partly be a reflection of lower expectations of the quality of care.
People in regions outside London were consistently more positive. This was particularly true in the north east, where patients gave more positive responses in all five surveys. There were no appreciable differences between other regions outside London. The report adds that one reason why Londoners are more negative may be because trusts find it more difficult to recruit and retain staff. London hospitals tend to have relatively high numbers of temporary staff, which is thought to impact on patient experience.
The Commission says more analysis would be needed to understand other regional variations in response. But its survey of primary care trust patients’ did suggest that people in deprived areas were relatively negative. This may be because of higher levels of illness and greater exposure to healthcare services.
Click for a pdf copy of the report.
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