Tipperary patients urged to take part in survey on their stay in Clonmel and Nenagh hospitals

 The third National Patient Experience Survey is now underway in South Tipperary General Hospital and Nenagh Hospital.

This annual survey — the largest of its kind in Ireland — offers patients the opportunity to share their experiences in hospital and tell us what improvements they believe are necessary. This provides a clear picture of the safety and quality of care in Irish hospitals, as seen through the eyes of patients.

An estimated 700 patients in Tipperary will be eligible to participate in this year’s survey. Since 2017, over 26,000 patients have completed the survey nationally, making over 40,000 comments on the care and treatment they received in hospital. Last year’s high response rate of over 48% in Tipperary indicates the strong desire of patients to talk about their experiences in hospital in order to bring about meaningful change.

The National Patient Experience Survey contains a total of 61 questions on topics such as admission to hospital, care and treatment on the ward, trust in hospital staff, respect and dignity, and discharge from hospital. All patients aged over 16 years-of-age who spend 24 hours or more in a public acute hospital and are discharged during the month of May are eligible to participate in the survey.

HIQA’s Rachel Flynn, visiting South Tipperary General Hospital today encourages all eligible patients in the area to participate in the survey: “It is important that as many patients as possible tell us about their experiences of care so that we can identify what is working well in our hospitals, and where improvements are needed.

“While a number of positive changes were identified in the second National Patient Experience Survey in 2018, a lot more needs to be done. It is by listening and learning from the experiences of patients that we can bring about effective and sustainable changes across the healthcare sector.”

Operational Assistant Director of Nursing at Nenagh Hospital, Cathrina Ryan, said: “We thank our patients for the great response rate to date and we would like to show them that we have improved our services based on what they have told us. For example, we introduced the new ‘volunteer befriender’, who role it is to chat to and meet with patients. This resulted in a 19% increase in patients reporting that they definitely had someone to talk to.”

You can visit the website www.patientexperience.ie and follow on Twitter @NPESurvey and on Facebook /NPESurvey.