Health and Care Experience Survey 2015/16 - National Results

Results from the 2015/16 Health and Care Experience Survey.

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10 Outcomes from NHS Treatments

Introduction

10.1 One of the actions identified in the Quality Strategy [18] was to "Improve and embed patient-reported outcomes and experience across all NHS Scotland services".

10.2 This survey asks patients to report outcomes based around three dimensions of health status - pain, ability to do usual activities and anxiety/ depression. They ask people about their experience of the impact of treatment on these three dimensions separately. While it is recognised that people cannot easily quantify change in health status, they are able to identify whether or not they have experienced an improvement. The "too soon to say" option allowed an answer for people who have been treated but are not yet expected to see a benefit.

People's ability to do their usual activities

10.3 Just over a quarter of respondents said that they had received NHS treatment or advice in the last year because of something that was affecting their ability to live their normal life.

10.4 Of these, 43 per cent were able to go back to most of their usual activities. However 19 per cent were less able to do their usual activities (Figure 17).

Figure 17: The effect of treatment of patients' ability to live their normal live (%)

Figure 17: The effect of treatment of patients' ability to live their normal live (%)

Pain or discomfort

10.5 Just over half of respondents said they had received NHS treatment or advice because of something that was causing them pain or discomfort.

10.6 Of these, 51 per cent reported that the effect of the treatment was to make them feel better than before and four per cent felt worse than before (Figure 18).

Figure 18: The effect of treatment on pain or discomfort (%)

Figure 18: The effect of treatment on pain or discomfort (%)

Depression or anxiety

10.7 About one in six respondents said that they had received NHS treatment or advice because of something that was making them feel depressed or anxious.

10.8 Of these, 53 per cent reported that the effect of the treatment was to make them feel better than before and 8 per cent felt worse than before (Figure 19).

Figure 19: The effect of treatment on depression or anxiety (%)

Figure 19: The effect of treatment on depression or anxiety (%)

Quality Outcome Indicator

10.9 The Quality Strategy emphasises the importance of measurement, and a Quality Measurement Framework has been developed [19] in order to provide a structure for describing and aligning the wide range of measurement work with the Quality Ambitions and Outcomes. As part of this framework, twelve national Quality Outcome Indicators have been identified, which are intended to show national progress towards achievement of the Quality Ambitions.

10.10 One of these twelve Quality Outcome Indicators relates to Patient Reported Outcomes. While initial proposals envisaged that this indicator would be built up from local patient feedback information, it was recognised that this would require long term development and that therefore a high level indicator should be captured using this national survey. It was first reported in the 2011/12 survey.

10.11 The indicator is based on the outcomes questions reported above and provides a single score for patient reported outcomes. Further information on how the indicator has been calculated is available in the technical report. It should be kept in mind that this indicator represents a score and not a percentage value.

10.12 The value of the Healthcare Experience Quality Outcome Indicator has remained broadly steady since its introduction, with a slight fall in 2015/16 to 74.0. (Table 10).

10.13 In the 2013/14 publication this table contained a calculation error. Whilst the scores for Scotland and the majority of the NHS Boards were accurate, the scores of some of the smaller NHS Boards were affected. The main impact of this was that the 2013/14 score for NHS Western Isles was incorrectly presented as 'significantly worse' than 2011/12. There was in fact no statistically significant difference between the scores for the two years. More information about this revision is available in Chapter 8 of the technical report [20]

Table 10: Outcome Indicator by NHS Board

Health Board Outcomes indicator 95% confidence interval Change since 2013/14 R
Lower limit Upper limit
NHS Ayrshire & Arran 72.7 71.7 73.8 -1.3
NHS Borders 77.0 75.4 78.7 -1.2
NHS Dumfries & Galloway 74.8 73.4 76.2 -1.1
NHS Fife 73.2 72.1 74.2 -1.6
NHS Forth Valley 73.9 72.8 75.1 -1.2
NHS Grampian 75.6 74.6 76.7 -0.7
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde 73.1 72.5 73.8 -1.2
NHS Highland 75.6 74.6 76.6 -1.7
NHS Lanarkshire 71.2 70.3 72.0 -2.2
NHS Lothian 75.1 74.4 75.9 -1.1
NHS Orkney 80.1 77.1 83.0 -0.7
NHS Shetland 75.6 72.0 79.2 -2.8
NHS Tayside 74.9 73.9 75.9 -0.7
NHS Western Isles 78.6 75.2 82.0 2.5
Scotland 74.0 73.7 74.3 -1.3

R Figures from 2013/14 have been revised to correct a previous calculation error

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