The newly released National Inpatient Experience Survey highlights the areas of good experience as well as those needing improvement in Galway University Hospitals (University Hospital Galway (UHG ) and Merlin Park University Hospital ) and Portiuncla University Hospital, Ballinasloe.
While all three hospitals returned a largely favourable response from participating inpatients, there were several areas for improvement which ‘scored significantly below the national average’.
Areas for improvement
For patients of Portiuncla University Hospital, the predominant concern related to privacy with 17 per cent of the 156 participating patients from Portiuncla University Hospital stating that they ‘were not given enough privacy when discussing their condition or treatment’.
One participant of the survey was quoted as saying, “There was no privacy. Fortunately, my issue was not sensitive so privacy didn’t matter to me as such; but if it had, I would be most unhappy to discuss it in so public a location. Staff made an effort to shield me with their body when relevant and spoke in a lower tone in an effort to provide some form of privacy.”
According to participants, Galway University Hospital’s (GUH ) areas for improvement were emergency department waiting times and food rating. Of the 454 patients who answered the question regarding waiting times, 21 per cent stated that they waited ‘more than 24 hours before being admitted to a ward’. Of the 760 patients who answered the question regarding food rating, 32 per cent rated the hospital food as ‘fair’ or ‘poor’.
“I was not asked what I would like to eat on a daily basis,” shared one patient, adding, “[I was] only asked once a week. [I was] given food sometimes that I could not eat, such as scrambled eggs in the evening.
“ Areas of good experience
Despite the aforementioned issues, Galway’s hospitals received a largely positive review from participating patients. Overall, 89 per cent of survey participants of GUH said they had a ‘good to very good experience’ in the hospital, a sentiment shared by 83 per cent of survey participants from Portiuncla University Hospital.
Survey participants from Galway University Hospitals listed ‘clear answers from a doctor’, ‘time to discuss care and treatment with a doctor’ and ‘good communication between staff’ as areas of ‘good experience’.
There was no specific listed ‘area of good experience’ for Portiuncla University Hospital in the survey instead, a selection of comments highlighting the areas of good experience was provided.
“The carers were amazing at their job, so helpful and tried their best to do what they could to make patients’ lives better,” writes one participant. “The catering staff were also so helpful and got my food when I was admitted to the ward after the usual meal times.”
Insight
Welcoming the findings, GUH hospital manager, Chris Kane, said, “The findings of the survey provide us with important insights into patients’ perspectives of how they experienced treatment in our hospital and what improvements are needed to our services. It highlights the importance of our patient’s voices to improve services from their perspective and this has been a feature since 2017 when the first survey was carried out.
“We are very pleased that the majority of participants from Galway University Hospitals reported positive experiences in hospital. 89 per cent of the participants said they had a ‘good’ to ‘very good’ overall experience. Patients rated the ‘care on the ward’ at 8.4 out of 10 which is above the national average of 8.0.”
Tony Canavan, Regional Executive Officer HSE West and North West said, “Through this survey, our patients have provided us with really valuable feedback on their experience of care in our hospitals. I want to thank them for taking the time to do so. It is their engagement that allows us to further strengthen and improve our services. I would also like to thank our staff who support and encourage our patients to participate in this survey and for their commitment to providing good quality, patient-centered care. They are committed to making improvements for our patients.
“This survey allows us to engage with our patients and learn from and embed areas we are doing well in and also highlight areas we could do better in. The 2024 results showed that 84 per cent of patients across our hospitals had a positive experience of care and this is something we are very proud of. We will continue to develop and introduce initiatives in response to areas where our patient’s feedback has not been satisfactory.”
