Patients give their views on urgent and emergency care at OUH

The results of the National Urgent and Emergency Care Survey 2022 have been published by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) today, Tuesday 25 July 2023.

The national survey was completed by patients at 122 Emergency Departments, including at the two Emergency Departments at the Horton General and John Radcliffe hospitals run by Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (OUH). The survey was carried out in September 2022.

The two departments scored particularly well in some areas, including:

• Nurses and doctors explaining things in a way that was easy to understand.
• The amount of information given to patients in Emergency Departments about what was happening to them.
• Good explanations of the next stages of treatment, and what to expect when returning home from hospital.

Patients also reported that the environment was clean, and that they felt safe while being looked after.

The Trust performed better than other trusts in six questions, and about the same in the remaining questions. One of the main areas for improvement was communication around long waiting times.

Paula Gardner, Interim Chief Nursing Officer at OUH, said: "I am very proud of our hard-working teams in our Emergency Departments at the John Radcliffe Hospital and Horton General Hospital. Emergency Departments are busy places, and continue to get busier, so it is positive to hear that our patients are experiencing the levels of care and compassion we would expect from our colleagues.

"All feedback is taken into consideration, and we have already incorporated some of this into an improvement project for our Emergency Department, including better food availability, phone charger points, and improved signage."

Dr Larry Fitton, Emergency Department Consultant and Divisional Director for Medicine, Rehabilitation and Cardiac at OUH, said: "I would like to congratulate our teams at both Emergency Departments for the continued care and dedication that they give to our patients.

"There are always useful lessons to learn from patient feedback, and we are looking carefully at the results of the survey to identify areas of continued improvement."

The survey helps inform the important work the Trust does to identify areas and take feedback on where patients feel that we can improve. These results, alongside other forms of feedback, help the Trust focus on improving the overall experience of patients in hospital.

The National Urgent and Emergency Care Survey 2022 is part of a national survey programme run by the CQC to collect feedback on experiences of patients.