Heartbeat: Friends and family test – help us to improve the patient journey
February 11, 2019
Our friends and family test (FFT) has been in place since 2013, in an effort to improve patient experience at our hospitals.
FFT was introduced by NHS England and was rolled out across the majority of NHS funded services in England.
The test gives all patients the opportunity to give anonymous feedback on the care and treatment they have received and allows us to continually improve the services we provide. Patients are asked one simple question:
‘How likely are you to recommend our ward/service to your friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?’
They can rank their answer from ‘extremely likely’ to ‘extremely unlikely’ and can also make a comment to explain their ranking and tell us more about their experience.
In September last year we expanded the methods of how patients can complete the FFT, which now includes via SMS text messages and interactive voice messages, which has seen a steady increase in response rates.
Patient Experience Project Facilitator, Shila Patel explained more about the importance of the FFT.
“Since the introduction of the FFT, we have been able to make a number of changes which have improved our environment for patients,” said Shila.
“These changes have included things such as; introducing sleep packs for patients at night, using soft closing bins to reduce noise, better quality meals, cutlery and crockery and an improvement in communication between patients and colleagues.”
As well as the digital methods of completing the test, there are paper FFT postcards in all areas and completed ones should be returned to Shila to enable feedback to be collated and acted upon.
“Feedback needs to be seen by colleagues providing the care in as near to real time as possible,” said Shila.
“So please ensure you are returning the postcards as soon as possible, that way we can identify opportunities to make improvements that will really benefit our patients.”
Should you require further information or additional FFT postcards for your area, please contact shila.patel@nhs.net or call ext. 5188.