Making NHS patient feedback more inclusive

The new guidance covers services across the NHS that are provided to children and young people – with special provisions for looked after children – as well as patients with learning disabilities, dementia, language and literacy issues or patients who are deaf or deafblind.

Since the FFT guidance was originally published in July last year, promoting a standard feedback question for all patients, a number of providers have fed back on using it on healthcare’s frontline with patients in particular groups.

 Much of the feedback was positive but they also voiced some concerns, which included:

The programme team who oversee the FFT across England have listened to these points and looked at the good practice and evidence put forward.  This has resulted in revised guidance, recently published on the NHS England website, to allow new variations of the standard FFT question and the way it is presented to make it more accessible.

Tim Kelsey, National Director for Patients and Information, said: “It is important to get this right so that the NHS hears from all patients about the services they have experienced and how they can be improved.  Patients in these particular groups are important and often regular users of healthcare services and their voices need to be heard as much as everyone else’s. We’re keen that healthcare providers continue to give us feedback on how well this is working.”