Thumbs up for King's Lynn hospital care
The care and experience of children and young patients at Lynn's Queen Elizabeth Hospital has been put under the spotlight in the 2020 National Children and Young People’s Patient Experience Survey.
Children, young patients and their carers gave a thumbs up to the hospital in general.
The biennial survey, conducted by Picker, invited 557 parents of inpatients over a three-month period to respond.
It asked children and young people, as well as their parents and carers, questions about admission, the hospital ward, hospital staff, facilities for parents and carers, pain management, operations and procedures, the discharge process and their overall evaluations of their care.
The response rate was 27.57 per cent (against a national average of 24.2 per cent) and the results have since been standardised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and benchmarked against participating Trusts across the country.
The trust’s scores improved in a number of areas compared to the 2018 results, with parents feeling that overall their children had a positive experience.
An increase to 90 per cent of children were told who to talk to if they were worried when home.
The hospital performed better than other trusts where respondents were asked whether staff introduced themselves to the children they were caring for.
Feedback from parents who took part in the survey included: "The staff were amazing. My little girl had no fear about being in hospital whatsoever as the wonderful doctors and nurses were kind, thoughtful and were happy to explain her short stay in a very easy to understand manner.
"The staff went above and beyond to make my daughter feel safe and secure in the setting. They made her stay pleasant and not scary.
"They also gave her presents to say well done for being so brave during her procedure."
The survey also highlights where there is further work to do to provide an even better experience for children and young patients, notably clinicians using accessible language to help children to understand what is happening and the provision of activities for children to do during their hospital stay.
Alice Webster, chief nurse, said: "A hospital experience can be daunting for children and young people so it is especially important that we get things right to ensure they are at ease during their stay with us and have the best experience possible.
"These results provide us with further evidence that our young patients are receiving a positive experience at QEH, and we look forward to working together to make further improvements in the areas highlighted."
Caroline Shaw, chief executive, said: "These results are really encouraging and testament to the hard work and dedication of Team QEH.
"We are on a journey of improvement and I’m proud that we have pulled together to achieve these results despite the unprecedented challenges facing us in 2020.
"Importantly, they demonstrate where we must focus our efforts to make further improvements in response to feedback from our young patients and their families."
