The results are in for the friends and family test

Since the rollout of the Friends and Family Test (FFT) last year, the Trust has received more than 2,000 patient responses. The replies provide valuable and ‘real-time’ feedback on patients’ experiences with the service.

With that in mind, the Trust would like to thank staff for their support during the last successful year.

From April 2015 to February 2016, the results so far are:

• emergency services: of the 373 responses received, 97.9% of patients said that they would either be ‘likely’ or ‘extremely likely’ to recommend the service to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment
• patient transport services (PTS): of the 1,495 responses received, 95.6% of patients advised that they would either be ‘likely’ or ‘extremely likely’ to provide a recommendation
• primary care services (PCS): from April to July 2015 (the PCS contract ended in August 2015), 284 responses were received and 96.5% of patients answered that they would either be ‘likely’ or ‘extremely likely’ to recommend the service.

The release of the result coincides with NHS England’s Friends and Family Test spotlight week which began on Monday (14^th March) and aims to let the public know about the opportunity they have to share their experiences on NHS healthcare through the FFT and contributing ideas as to how things can be further improved.

Sandy Brown, Director of Nursing and Clinical Quality, said: “The Friends and Family Test has produced more than 10 million pieces of feedback, making it the biggest source of patient opinion in the world.

“Giving patients a way to rate our service, and give us comments, help us to identify areas where improvements can be made so we can make care and treatment better for everyone. Thank you to colleagues for the work done on this so far, please keep sharing feedback forms where you can.”

The FFT is a national scheme and we are required to provide all ‘see and treat’ 999 patients (i.e. those we do not convey), all patient transport service patients and all patients who we have a face to face contact with in the primary care service (such as in a primary care centre or at a home visit) with the opportunity to complete an FFT from.

A feedback form has been designed for each service so that we are able to capture specific feedback for these patient groups. The forms should be left with every patient to complete in their own time and return to us - the postage has already been paid. We are required to report our FFT results to both the commissioners and NHS England.

All staff are required to write the applicable number at the top of the form:

• 999: the CAD number
• PTS: the journey identifying number

If you have any questions in relation to the implementation of the FFT, please do not hesitate to contact the patient experience team on 01603 422757 or by email surveys@eastamb.nhs.uk. 

Published 17th March, 2016