How you rate our hospitals - do you agree?

The patient engagement day survey, carried out by health watchdog Healthwatch Lancashire, found most patients treated at Burnley, out of 64 asked, were happy with the care they received.

The hospital scored an average of 3.9 out of a possible five points across different categories, including care and compassion from staff, quality of service, medical treatment, ease of getting an appointment, helpful information, waiting time, food, cleanliness, as well as building and environment.

Patients were found to be most satisfied with the care and compassion from staff, which scored 4.3 out of five, the quality of service, which scored 4.2, and medical treatment, which scored 4.3.

Categories which scored lower were food, cleanliness and building and environment, which were given 3.9, 3.8 and 3.2 respectively.

The report also revealed ratings for individual departments. The highest scoring areas were blood clinic, physiotherapy, general elective surgery, outpatients and orthopaedic surgery, while the hospital’s urgent care facility was rated the lowest at 2.5 out of five.

Patients praised staff and the quality of care but raised concerns about the state of the buildings, cleanliness, signage and parking. Waiting times in the urgent care centre were also criticised.

One patient, surveyed in the outpatients’ department, said the hospital was “doing the best it can on limited resources.”

Patients surveyed at the Royal Blackburn Hospital also scored it highly but raised concerns about accident and emergency department waiting times and the winter pressures ward. Healthwatch asked 89 people for their views on the care they had. The hospital scored an overall rating of 4.26 out of five, with care and compassion from staff, cleanliness and medical treatment receiving the highest ratings.

Food and waiting times at Blackburn were given the lowest ratings of 4.07 and 3.95 respectively.

Patients praised the hospital’s diabetic foot service, endoscopy, surgery, radiology and X-ray departments, which all received the maximum rating of five out of five, while the winter pressures ward only received a rating of one, the lowest.

One person asked, whose mother was on the winter pressures ward, said: “It was a terrible experience and daughter stayed at bedside as much as possible. Bank staff meant there was no continuation of care. Mother got a urine infection and this went unidentified. Pills went missing on the floor and not checked. Staff too busy. Mother didn’t drink enough. Lacked communication.”

The hospital’s accident and emergency department was also criticised for leaving patients waiting too long and parking and patients smoking outside the hospital entrance were highlighted as issues in the report.

But patients praised staff, the cleanliness of the hospital and the quality of care.

Mrs Christine Pearson, chief nurse at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, said: “We thank Healthwatch Lancashire volunteers and staff for their work in reporting positive findings from patients and their families, as well as highlighting some areas for improvement.

“We take all feedback very seriously and constantly strive to ensure all our patients and relatives have a good experience when using the Trust’s services.

“We take on board all the comments received and are looking at any issues raised in further detail before making changes or improvements are reporting these to the public.”

Sheralee Turner-Birchall, senior manager at Healthwatch Lancashire, added: “Patient and relatives input into the way services run can be invaluable as they have an experience that staff can’t access.

“Sometimes seeing services from their point of view opens up real opportunities for improvement that may not have already been considered.”