Part of the NHS mandate is that all hospitals will be required to collect feedback from their patient. This will take the form of the 'Friends and Family' test, or, the Net Promoter score. This asks the simple question: "Would you recommend this service to your friends and family?". The response is on a scale from 0-5, with 4 & 5 being Net Promoters. Trusts will be expected to gain feedback from at least 10% of their patients within 48 hours of discharge and report the results.
This is something which has been piloted in the Midlands and East SHA for the last year and has been trialed in 46 acute trusts. The test has been implemented in several ways, the most common being to get ward nurses to ask the question on discharge.
Using the DrDoctor platform makes performing the Friends and Family test easy. By using our communication platform the test can be triggered by discharge messages from your PAS system. These are sent by email or SMS the responses are then automatically collected ready to be viewed. We don’t think it is right that in this age hospitals need to pay staff to run around collecting surveys. Our approach uses simple technology and common sense to solve the problem. Patients interact the way they choose to and hospitals can see the results as in real time through a web portal. You can the slice and dice this data to view it by ward, specialty or even doctor or nurse. Feed this into your dashboard measures and it provides real insight into which services are performing well or need improving. And all that with no manual intervention - that’s how technology should be used! It’s not just us who think so: In fact, this is how the DoH recommends the test is implemented.
This saves valuable nursing time on the ward, gives a robust data collection methodology and allows you to see your results instantly.
Get in touch if you'd like to hear more about how we can help you implement the Friends and Family test.