The University of Oxford and Picker Institute Europe have been awarded £786,880 by the National Institute for Health Research to investigate how NHS frontline teams use different types of patient experience data for improvement.
The project, funded as part of the Health Services and Delivery Research (HS&DR) Programme, aims to build an understanding of which types of data or quality improvement approaches are more or less likely to be useful with frontline teams in making healthcare more person-centred.
The research will focus specifically on six frontline general medical ward teams, using a formative and exploratory case study approach. A learning community for the six ward teams will provide an opportunity to explore approaches to learning from and improving patient experience helping the teams to develop and implement their own interventions and measures.
This is a great opportunity for acute trusts to join a learning community and receive expert support in improving patient experience
The project’s chief investigator, Louise Locock, director of applied research for the Health Experiences Research Group at the University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, said: “Improving patient experience is currently a high priority for the NHS, but change has been slow.
“There is an awareness of the importance of patient experience and we need to learn lessons about what works in which contexts and share learning across the NHS.”
Neil Churchill, director of patient experience at NHS England and a co-applicant on the research, added: “The NHS is a world-leader in prompting patients, families and staff to give feedback about their experiences of care, but we are not yet using that feedback consistently or to full effect in making improvements to services. This important study will help us improve the way we listen to patients, carers and staff and act on what they tell us.”
The research will run for 27 months and in early 2018 a practical toolkit for the NHS on strategies for making patient experience data more convincing, credible and useful for frontline teams and trusts will be released.
The team will be recruiting six NHS acute trusts to collaborate in this research.
Jenny King, associate director of research at the Picker Institute, said: “This is a great opportunity for acute trusts to join a learning community and receive expert support in improving patient experience.”