Royal Surrey Leading the Way on Single Sex care

Royal Surrey patients have praised the provision of single sex accommodation and facilities in the latest national patient survey.

Inpatients at the Royal Surrey County Hospital gave the highest score in Surrey for the provision of single sex accommodation and bathroom facilities.  84% of inpatients said that they were able to stay in single sex accommodation and 76% had access to single sex bathroom facilities.  The Trust also scored well for patient privacy and 89% said they were always given enough privacy when being examined or treated.

Patients were also happy with the care they received overall and 93% described the care as excellent, very good or good.  88% of patients said they were treated with dignity and respect and 94% of patients described the hospital ward as very or fairly clean.

Sue Lewis, Director of Nursing and Operations and Deputy Chief Executive said:

"The results of this year's inpatient survey do show that we are doing well on the issues that matter to patients such as privacy, being treated with compassion, respect and dignity, cleanliness and quality of care. 

"However, we are very committed to receiving and acting on regular feedback from our patients and since last June have been running an inpatient experience survey which provides us with monthly feedback on what our patients' think of the care they have received. The results are showing that more than 70% of patients rated their care as excellent and 72% would definitely recommend the Royal Surrey to friends and family. 

"Our survey has also highlighted areas that we need to improve on such as quality of the food and speeding up the discharge from hospital.  A large project is already implementing a number of food improvements and a number of staff are involved in a project to improve the discharge process.  This project includes early planning for patients' discharge and ensuring that prescriptions are available on time to take home."

The Care Quality Commission survey was carried out in July 2008 and covers all 165 acute and specialist hospital trusts in England. Scores have been compared for questions covering care in A&E, quality of care, doctors and nurses' attitudes and information. 

The Royal Surrey County Hospital has recently been praised for its commitment to providing single sex accommodation by the Department of Health, NHS South East Coast and NHS Surrey.

During a visit to observe how the Royal Surrey has minimised  mixed sex accommodation, the Trust was applauded for its current provision of  single sex facilities and said the Royal Surrey was the best hospital they had visited in ensuring that patients do not share bays on the wards.

It was announced last week that the Royal Surrey has received part of the Department of Health's £1 million Privacy and Dignity Challenge Fund to help eliminate mixed sex accommodation across the country. We have been awarded £98,000 to support some further improvements to the areas where we need to provide more single sex bays.

The Royal Surrey was also recently named as one of the 40 Top Hospitals in the country.  The accolade was awarded by CHKS, who are an independent provider of healthcare intelligence and quality improvement services to the NHS.  The Trust was judged on its clinical effectiveness, health outcomes, efficiency, patient experience and quality of healthcare.