Eight out of 10 patients rate overall care and treatment within NHS Forth Valley as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’, according to a new inpatient survey.

It marks an increase of 6.8 per cent from 2012’s survey and the highest rating since inpatient surveys began in 2010. The national inpatient experience survey is published annually by the Scottish Government.

A total of 417 NHS Forth Valley patients responded about their experiences of admission, the hospital ward and environment, care and treatment, operations and procedures, staff, leaving hospital, care after leaving hospital and medicines, between April and September last year.

The majority of those who gave their feedback (62 per cent) were aged 65 and over and had a ‘limiting illness’ or disability. There were big improvements in the overall rating of care and treatment received in the Accident & Emergency department with 90 per cent of patients having a very positive or positive experience – a 10 per cent increase from the 2012 survey and 3 per cent above the Scottish average.

Ninety-one per cent of patients who responded were positive or very positive about the care of treatment they received (an increase of 13 per cent) and 98 per cent of patients were positive or very positive about the standards of cleanliness in their main ward or room (an increase of seven per cent). However, of 34 respondents who had clinical errors in their treatment, 42 per cent scored negatively for staff discussing the errors with them and 46 per cent were unhappy with how the errors were handled.

Professor Angela Wallace, NHS Forth Valley’s Director of Nursing, said, “The results are very encouraging and the increase in patient experience would not have been possible without the hard work, commitment and dedication of our staff here in NHS Forth Valley.

“We value feedback from patients and relatives and this survey is particularly useful as it gives us an insight into how individual patients viewed their recent stay in hospital. We also recognise that we still have more to do in a number of areas and we will continue to work with patients to take forward further improvements.” Another area which saw a big improvement was the overall rating of the hospital or ward environment – 91 per cent had a very positive or positive experience which was up 18 per cent from 2012 and 3 per cent ahead of the national average.

Survey questionnaires were sent out in January 2014 to 928 people who stayed overnight in an NHS Forth Valley hospital between 1 April and 30 September 2013. Of all those who were surveyed, 43 per cent were male, 57 per cent were female and a third did not have any limiting illness or disability.