Outpatient Survey 2009

The Royal Surrey is in the top 20% of hospitals for short outpatient waiting times and having time to discuss their care with their doctor.   

Outpatients at the Royal Surrey also gave the highest scores in Surrey for the quality of the staff supporting the doctor during the appointment and for the medicines advice received during the appointment.  The Trust scored 8.9 out of 10 for the quality of staff and 8.1 out of 10 for medicines advice. 

The Trust also received high scores for providing good information about treatments to patients.

The results are part of the Care Quality Commission’s 2009 Outpatient Department Survey published today (25^th February 2010).   

Patients also praised the privacy in the department with 93% saying they definitely had enough privacy when being examined or treated and 88% were very happy with the privacy when discussing their condition. 

93% of patients rated the care as excellent, very good or good and 98% of outpatients said the department was very clean or fairly clean. 

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

“The results of the 2009 outpatient survey do show that we are providing our outpatients with a good experience when they come to the Royal Surrey.  We are particularly proud of the fact that patients do not have long waits to see a consultant and that our patients are receiving the advice they need about medicines and treatments.   

“Privacy and dignity are also very important issues for both our patients and our staff and more than 9 out of 10 patients said they had enough privacy and 85% said they were treated with dignity and respect throughout their appointments.

“However, there are always areas for improvement and we are looking at how we can reduce waiting in the outpatient department beyond the appointment time.  Our outpatients department is busier than ever but we still need to ensure that we do all we can to reduce the amount of time that patients wait.  

“To ensure that we do make changes for the better we will also be launching a regular outpatient survey to increase the amount of feedback we receive.” 

The Care Quality Commission survey was carried out between July and October 2009 and 469 patients responded.