Publish date: 29 September 2022
Survey results underline Northumbria Healthcare’s commitment to patient care
The positive experience of inpatients at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has been highlighted following its leading performance in a national care survey.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has today (Thursday, September 29) published the results of the 2021 Adult Inpatients Survey, which covers all 134 NHS acute and specialist hospital trusts.
And Northumbria Healthcare, which runs hospitals in Northumberland and North Tyneside, has been featured in an outliers report due to its performance across the survey being ‘better than expected’ compared to the majority of other trusts.
Of the 12 trusts mentioned for much better or better patient experience, Northumbria Healthcare is the only acute hospital trust included, alongside specialist trusts with a specific focus on the likes of cancer or orthopaedics.
Across the 47 questions which were asked of patients, the trust’s scores were better than expected in 32 of them and similar to others for the remaining 15.
Across the 10 key themes in the survey, patients rated Northumbria Healthcare better than most trusts in six of them – admission to hospital, the hospital and ward, nurses, care and treatment, leaving hospital, and overall experience.
In the remaining four domains, the trust was somewhat better in one (doctors) and the same as other trusts in the other three (operations and procedures, feedback on care, respect and dignity).
Sir James Mackey, chief executive at Northumbria Healthcare, said: “We pride ourselves on our commitment to outstanding patient care and we know how hard our staff work to ensure that our patients get the treatment and experience they deserve.
“These results are for our hospitals only and hospitals have been under increasing pressure in recent times, like the rest of the NHS. So, it is reassuring to see that, in spite of these pressures, our staff have continued to focus on the needs of patients and delivered excellent standards of care.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our staff for this, as well as reassuring patients that we will continue to focus on improving our services and getting fully back to pre-Covid standards and performance as soon as possible. We are very appreciative of the support of our communities and I hope these results show that our staff have patients at the heart of all that they do.”
The trust has an extensive patient experience programme, which is recognised as one of the most wide-ranging in the NHS. The process involves feedback being collected by Patient Perspective – an independent company approved by the CQC – to gain authentic and reflective insight, which is then analysed and acted on.
As well as this important input from patients, Northumbria Healthcare welcomes involvement from all those with an interest; as a foundation trust, it has greater freedoms to plan local services and respond to the needs and wishes of the communities it serves. Anyone over the age of 12 can become a member to help shape the trust’s services by completing this online form.
Another way of getting more involved is via the Northumbria Online Community, which enables people to engage with others and give feedback through discussions, polls and surveys - https:/
The trust’s strong performance is not currently restricted to inpatients, as it is ranked number one nationally on https:/