The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust (PAHT) has exceeded previous ratings in a children’s survey carried out by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

as a result of an ongoing focus on improving the experience of children and young people.

The national Children and Young People’s Patient Experience Survey 2018 involved three different questionnaires for youngsters, 0-seven years old, eight-11 years old, and 12-15 years old.

categories, for the child or parent/carer to complete.

The survey was open for the child or parent/ carer to complete from February to June 2019 and was targeted to those who were discharged in November and December 2018.

More than 50 questions on a variety of topics was listed, from the process of going to hospital, the ward environment and hospital facilities, the approach of staff, pain management, the experience of having an operation or procedure, and the process of leaving hospital.

At PAHT, 170 children and young people responded to the survey – a response rate of 24.85%. The results were better than the majority of trusts for six questions:

• ‘Did the hospital staff answer your questions?’ (9.9/10 rating)

• ‘Were you involved in decisions about your care and treatment?’ (7.5/10 rating)

• ‘Before the operations or procedures, did hospital staff explain to you what would be done?’ (9.6/10 rating)

• ‘When you left hospital, did you know what was going to happen next with your care?’ (8.9/10 rating)

• ‘Do you feel that the people looking after you were friendly?’ (9.8/10 rating)

• ‘Overall, how well do you think you were looked after in hospital?’ (9.5/10 rating)

Fiona Lodge, head of children’s services and nursing, said: “We are proud that we have continued to improve the experience children and young people have in our hospital.

“It is testament to the hard work and dedication of our teams that we have built upon the results of previous years through reviewing patient feedback and implementing changes, such as revising leaflets in consultation with parents; including documentation around consultation with families in our ward rounds; and a new display board for children’s pictures.”