Patient focus - other support

Policy and reports

This section includes key strategic and standard documents which shape the current policy framework for clinical governance. The items below are specific to patient focus. For the overarching national standards and strategies please refer to the four country overviews -  England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

The documents are listed in date order. The most recent publications appear at the top of the list.

Some of the resources on this page are in PDF format - see how to access PDF files.

Healthcare Environment

Enhancing the patient care environment (2010) (PDF 370KB)
This Foundation of Nursing Studies project offered a programme of support to nurse-led teams working in diverse healthcare settings to enable them to work in partnership with patients and other stakeholders to improve the patient care environment and ultimately the patients’ experience of healthcare.

Improving environments for care at end of life (2008)
This report presents work from the King's Fund which aimed to improve the environment of care for those who are dying, bereaved or deceased. The programme encourages and enables local teams to work in partnership with service users to improve the environment in which they deliver care.

Patient experience

NHS Patient Experience Framework (2012)
This Department of Health framework outlines the areas most important to patients’ experience of NHS services. It provides a common evidence-based list of what matters to patients, and can be used to direct efforts to improve services.

Patient Opinion: In their words What patients think about our NHS (2011) (PDF 1.6MB)
This report analyses a sample of critical patient comments posted on the Patient Opinion website over the past five years to find out their top issues with NHS healthcare services.

Intelligent Board 2010: Patient Experience (2010)
This report from the Intelligent Board series supported by Dr Foster challenges NHS boards and non-executive directors (NEDs) to review the way they treat patient experience. It focuses on what boards can do to ensure they acquire a rounded understanding of how patients, and their families or carers, experience care or treatment.

Evaluation of the NHS Institute Patient Experience Learning Programme (2010)
The Department of Health commissioned the NHS Institute to deliver a Patient Experience Learning Programme. The programme focuses on collecting and using patient experience feedback to inform commissioning decisions, support contract management and improve services. View the Evauation of the Patient Experience Learning Programme (PDF 816KB). 

Continuity of care and the patient experience (2010)
This King's Fund paper explores patients’ and clinicians’ perspectives on this aspect of general practice, and considers how GPs can stimulate and maintain continuity of care.

Core domains for measuring inpatients' experience of care (PDF 785KB)
The aim of this report from the Picker Institute is to stimulate debate about prioritising domains and indicators of patient experience. It specifically addresses the care and treatment of acute hospital inpatients, but it has wider relevance to other patient groups.

Developing a culture that places quality of patient experience at the heart of everything (2009)
The presentation sets out the work the Department of Health is doing to help create an NHS culture that effectively engages patients and uses feedback to help assess care quality and to design better services.

Better Together: Scotland's Patient Experience Programme Building on the Experiences of NHS Boards (2008)
This research documents Scottish Health Boards' current patient experience activities and Boards representatives' experiences of and attitudes towards patient experience as well as examining the expectations of the Scottish Patient Experience Programme and beliefs about patients' priorities.

Improving the patient and client experience (2008) (PDF 3.93MB)
Northern Ireland has launched a set of standards aimed at improving patient care. The five standards relating to respect, attitude, behaviour, communication, privacy and dignity set out what the public should expect from staff in the health service.

Patient and public experience of the NHS (2007)
This Health Foundation chartbook presents a focused perspective on quality in England's NHS, with an emphasis on patient and public expectations, experiences and evaluations.

Getting over the wall: how the NHS is improving the patient experience (2004)
This Department of Health report provides good practice examples which illustrate how the outputs from patient and public involvement activity have influenced service planning and development in the NHS to deliver improvements for patients.

Little things make a big difference: Valuing the patient experience - Scottish Government publications
Key publications published by the Scottish government and the Patient Focus, Public Involvement Programme of NHS Education for Scotland. See also: United Kingdom government publications.

Patient and public involvement

Patient Rights (Scotland) Act (PDF 89KB)
This Act makes provision about the rights of patients when receiving health care and states that the health care that patients receive should meet certain criteria, according to a set of health care principles.

Heart of the matter: patient and public engagement in today’s NHS (2010)
This report says that patient and public engagement (PPE) must become integral to the operation of every NHS organisation. It asks questions about the future of patient and public engagement in an ever-changing NHS.

Listening, learning, working together? (2009) (PDF 305KB)
A national study from the Healthcare Commission which looks at how well healthcare organisations engage local people in planning and improving their services. The study was carried out because of mixed evidence from the annual health check in 2006 and 2007 about the standards of patient and public engagement.

Putting people first: working together with user-led organisations (2009)
This Department of Health document outlines the benefits that local organisations, and their residents can enjoy when they work with user-led organisations.

The engagement cycle: a new way of thinking about patient and public engagement (PPE) in world class commissioning (2009)
Guidance from the Department of Health which highlights who needs to do what to engage people at each stage of the commissioning cycle.

A baseline assessment of the current state of Patient and Public Involvement in English NHS Trusts (2008) (PDF 529.6KB)
The first ever national general survey of the state of PPI across all areas of NHS Trusts in England. The survey from the NHS Centre for Involvement highlights high commitment to PPI among NHS Trusts in England.

A guide to patient and public involvement in urgent care (2008)
The NHS Centre for Involvement has produced a guide for commissioners and providers that provides a step by step process to implement an effective system of patient and public involvement in urgent care.

Real involvement: working with people to improve services (2008)
Guidance aimed at helping the public become more involved with decisions made by the NHS such as redesigning services or developing a commissioning strategy.

Duty to involve patients strengthened (2007)
The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act makes a number of changes to way the NHS is expected to involve and consult communities in the planning and development of services, and this provides an update on one of these changes - section 242.

House of Commons Health Committee Patient and Public Involvement in the NHS (2007)
This report examined the purpose of patient and public involvement. It also looked at what form it should take and questioned why existing systems for patient and public involvement were being reformed after only 3 years.

Engaging with Care. A Vision for the Health and Care Workforce of England (2007)
A report from the Nuffield Trust which examines the current health and care needs of people in England and the human resources and facilities that will be required to meet these needs in the future. It develops three scenarios for how patients, citizens and carers might engage with the health and social care system in 2022.

Engaging patients in their healthcare: how is the UK doing relative to other European countries? (2006) (PDF 744.6KB)
A report from Picker Institute Europe. Data from surveys carried out in the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Germany and the USA were used to compare performance in each country in relation to six indicators of patient engagement.

Patient Focus and Public Involvement
A Scottish Government framework for delivering a culture change in the NHS, placing patient-focus at the heart of service design and delivery.

NHS Improvement Plan. Putting people at the heart of public services (2004)
This Department of Health document summarises 'The NHS Improvement Plan: Putting people at the heart of public services' which sets out the priorities for the NHS between now and 2008. It reinforces the Department of Health's continuing commitment to a 10-year process of reform first set out in The NHS Plan, in July 2000.

Health and Social Care Act 2001, Section 11 - the duty to involve and consult
The Health and Social Care Act is made available on the Office of Public Sector Information website. Section 11 places a duty on NHS trusts, Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities to make arrangements to involve and consult patients and the public in service planning and operation, and in the development of proposals for changes.

Patient and public involvement: LINks

LINks are independent networks of local people and local groups that can find out what people want, investigate issues and use their powers to hold services to account. They were set up in England from April 2008 to give communities a stronger voice in how their health and social care services are delivered.

Department of Health: Local involvement networks (LINks)
Department of Health web page with useful information about LINks.

Help build a better health and social care service: Local Involvement Networks (LINks) explained (2008)
Local Involvement Networks (LINks) have been introduced to help strengthen the system that enables communities to influence local health and care services. This Department of Health document explains more about LINks and how communities can make their voice heard by getting involved.

Stronger voice, better care - Local Involvement Networks (LINks) explained (2008)
This Department of Health leaflet explains more about LINks and how communities can make their voice heard by getting involved.

Listening and responding to communities: a brief guide to Local Involvement Networks (2008)
A Local Involvement Network (LINk) should be up and running in every area of England by the end of 2008. This guide aims to help health and social care managers understand LINks, and how LINks can help services respond to local needs.

Patient Choice

Cabinet Office: Open Public Services White Paper (2011)
The White Paper sets out the government’s approach to public services by applying five key principles, including choice. 'By putting choice and control in the hands of individuals and neighbourhoods, public services will become more responsive to peoples’ needs'.

How patients choose and how providers respond (2010)
This report considers how free choice of provider is operating in practice and what impact patient choice is having on hospital providers. It concludes that 'the policy of offering patients a choice of provider is valued by patients, and is operating to some extent within the NHS, but is not operating in exactly the way envisaged by policy'.

Assertive Citizens. New Relationships in the Public Services (2009)
This report from the Social Market Foundation looks at choice-based reforms, the future role of professionals, and the concept of co-production, which seeks to promote greater cooperation between citizens and professionals in the production of public services.

Department of Health: NHS Constitution for England (revised 2010)
The NHS Constitution established a new right to choice and to information to support that choice. The new right makes choice a core feature of a responsive NHS in the 21st century. A handbook has been published which is designed to give NHS staff and patients all the information they need about the NHS Constitution for England. View the Handbook to the NHS Constitution.

Report on the National Patient Choice Survey England - February 2010
This Department of Health report of the National Patient Choice Survey for patients referred in February 2010 gives the results of around 69,000 responses to the eighteenth survey commissioned to assess the offer and awareness of choice. View previous patient choice surveys.

Working Together (2009)
This HM Government report sets out its vision for the future shape of public services, which includes giving patients greater choice and control over their care and more opportunities to input their own experiences.

Patient Choice (2008) (PDF 103.1KB)
A briefing paper from the King's Fund which looks at the development of reforms to give patients a choice of provider for their planned hospital care.

King's Fund: Improving choice at end of life (2008)
The Delivering Choice Programme aims to develop and help provide the best possible service for patients at the end of their lives.

Choice matters: Increasing choice improves patients' experiences (2006)
The Department of Health report 'Choice matters' provides an update of the development of patient choice. Patients, GPs and practice managers describe their experiences of choice and Choose and Book.

The informed patient

Department of Health: Better information, better choices, better health
Department of Health web page with resources helping to empower patients with better information to make better healthcare choices.

Complaints

Welsh Assembly Government (2011) Putting Things Right
This Welsh Government website is dedicated to the sharing of information about the development of the Putting Things Right Project. Under the new Putting Things Right arrangements, the NHS in Wales will aim to "investigate once, investigate well", ensuring that concerns are dealt with in the right way, the first time round. View the NHS Concerns, Complaints and Redress Arrangements Wales Regulations 2011.

NHS Scotland: Making a complaint about the NHS (2011)
This leaflet provides advice on how to make a complain in Scotland, and is made available on the Health Rights Information Scotland (HRIS) website.

NHS complaints procedure
This Department of Health page contains the legislation that sets out the legal framework for the operation of the NHS complaints procedure, all the guidance issued since April 1996 as well as information for patients on how to complain about the NHS. There is a good practice toolkit for complaints managers working throughout the NHS in England. The NHS Choices website also provides advice on how to make a complaint. Visit: Complaints.

Spotlight on complaints (2009) (PDF 982.5KB)
The report from the Healthcare Commission includes 12 key recommendations to all NHS trusts to improve the way they resolve complaints in preparation for the new complaints handling system that came into place in April 2009 and which will put more emphasis on trusts resolving complaints at a local level.

Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) Regulations 2009
From April 2009, an updated legislative framework was introduced to support the new complaints approach for health and local authority adult social care services in England.

Can I help you? Learning from Comments, Concerns and Complaints (2005) (PDF 338KB)
NHS complaints procedure for NHSScotland setting out how the NHS in Scotland should deal with comments, concerns and complaints from the people who use its services. See also: NHS complaints.

HSC Complaints: complaints about the health service in Northern Ireland
This page provides guidance on the complaints procedure for health and social care services in Northern Ireland.