§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance his Department has issued to NHS trusts and primary care trusts to ensure comparability of results when constructing surveys of users and carers; when the first round of surveys will be completed; and how this will be monitored. [4080]
§ Ms Blears[holding answer 17 July 2001]: The NHS Plan and Public Service Agreement made new commitments about patient surveys. We will improve the quality of patient experience through measurement of performance, from the patient perspective, to drive real service improvement year on year.
Work is in hand to select survey contractors who will be able to run surveys of acute hospital patients during 2001–02. The survey will include a common national core—which will include the requirements for the performance framework—with the option of adding local questions to inform local actions. Detailed guidance will be issued to all acute national health service trusts in late summer.
From October 2001 NHS trusts will begin to carry out new trust-based patient surveys. From April 2002, results from core questions will be available and feed into the national performance information and traffic lights during 2002, as a first stage in measuring the patient experience of local health services as part of NHS performance management arrangements.