Understanding high and low patient experience scores in primary care: analysis of patients' survey data for general practices and individual doctors

Understanding ethnic inequalities in cancer diagnostic intervals: a cohort study of patients presenting suspected cancer symptoms to GPs in England

BACKGROUND

UK Asian and Black patients experience longer cancer diagnostic intervals - the period between initial symptomatic presentation in primary care and cancer diagnosis.

AIM

To determine whether the differences in diagnostic intervals are because of prolonged primary care, referral, or secondary care interval.

DESIGN AND SETTING

A cohort study was undertaken of 70 971 patients with seven cancers (breast, lung, prostate, colorectal, oesophagogastric, myeloma, ovarian) diagnosed after symptom presentation in English primary care.

METHOD

Data on symptom presentation and diagnosis were extracted from cancer registry-linked primary care and secondary care data. Primary interval was defined as the period between first primary care presentation and secondary care referral, referral interval as the period between referral and first secondary care appointment, and secondary care interval as the period between the first secondary care appointment and diagnosis. Accelerated failure time models were used to investigate ethnic differences across all four intervals.

RESULTS

Across all sites, the median diagnostic interval was 46 days, ranging from 13 days for breast cancer to 116 days for lung cancer. It was 14% longer for Black patients (adjusted time ratio [ATR] 1.14, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.05 to 1.25) and 13% longer for Asian patients (ATR 1.13, 95% CI = 1.03 to 1.23) compared with White patients. Site-specific analyses showed that, for myeloma, lung, prostate, and colorectal cancer, the secondary care interval was longer in Asian and Black patients, who also had a longer primary care interval in breast and colorectal cancer. There was little evidence of ethnic differences in referral interval.

CONCLUSION

This study found evidence of ethnic differences in diagnostic intervals, with prolonged secondary care intervals for four common cancers and prolonged primary care intervals for two. Although these differences are relatively modest, they are unjustified and may indicate shortcomings in healthcare delivery that disproportionately affect ethnic minorities.

A perspective on the use of patient-reported experience and patient-reported outcome measures in ambulatory healthcare

INTRODUCTION

Patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) are patient reports about their healthcare, whereas patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are reports about their functioning and well-being regarding physical, mental, and social health. We provide a perspective on using PREMs and PROMs in ambulatory healthcare.

AREAS COVERED

We conducted a narrative review of the literature about using PREMs and PROMs in research and clinical practice, identified challenges and possibilities for addressing them, and provided suggestions for future research and clinical practice.

EXPERT OPINION

Substantial progress in using PREMs and PROMs has occurred during the last half-century. Collecting and reporting PREMs to clinicians in ambulatory care settings has improved communication with patients, diagnosis, and treatment, which may improve patients' health. Optimal use requires appropriate data analysis, minimizing implementation barriers, and facilitating interpretation of PREMs and PROMs in clinical practice. Also, formal structures and processes that include patient and family input into care improvement are needed (e.g. patient and family advisory councils as partners in co-design and coproduction of quality improvement). PREMs and PROMs have been used primarily in more affluent countries (e.g. the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Japan, and Portugal), but this is expected to increase in many countries.

Patient experience and satisfaction with shared decision-making: A cross-sectional study among outpatients

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to investigate how doctor-patient communication, trust in doctors impacted patients' experience and satisfaction in shared decision-making (SDM).

METHODS

This study is based on the data from a cross-sectional survey (n = 12,401) conducted in 27 public specialist outpatient clinics in Hong Kong.

RESULTS

The multivariable regression models revealed that doctors' better communication skills were associated with lower decision-making involvement (odd ratio, 0.75 [95 % CI, 0.88-0.94], P < .001) but higher satisfaction with involvement (odd ratio, 6.88 [95 % CI, 5.99-7.93], P < .001). Similarly, longer consultation durations were associated with reduced involvement in decision-making (odd ratio, 0.71 [95 % CI, 0.66-0.73], P < .001) but increased satisfaction with involvement (odd ratio, 1.91 [95 % CI, 1.80-2.04], P < .001). Trust in doctors significantly mediated these associations, except for the association between consultation duration and patients' satisfaction with decision-making involvement.

CONCLUSION

Doctors' better communication skills and longer consultations might not necessarily increase patient involvement in SDM but correlated with increased satisfaction with involvement. Trust in doctors emerged as a mediator for participation and satisfaction in decision-making.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Clinics should consider patients' preferences and capabilities when tailoring communication strategies about decision-making and optimizing patient satisfaction.

Variation in the use of primary care-led investigations prior to a cancer diagnosis: analysis of the National Cancer Diagnosis Audit

INTRODUCTION

Use of investigations can help support the diagnostic process of patients with cancer in primary care, but the size of variation between patient group and between practices is unclear.

METHODS

We analysed data on 53 252 patients from 1868 general practices included in the National Cancer Diagnosis Audit 2018 using a sequence of logistic regression models to quantify and explain practice-level variation in investigation use, accounting for patient-level case-mix and practice characteristics. Four types of investigations were considered: any investigation, blood tests, imaging and endoscopy.

RESULTS

Large variation in practice use was observed (OR for 97.5th to 2.5th centile being 4.02, 4.33 and 3.12, respectively for any investigation, blood test and imaging). After accounting for patient case-mix, the spread of practice variation increased further to 5.61, 6.30 and 3.60 denoting that patients with characteristics associated with higher use (ie, certain cancer sites) are over-represented among practices with lower than the national average use of such investigation. Practice characteristics explained very little of observed variation, except for rurality (rural practices having lower use of any investigation) and concentration of older age patients (practices with older patients being more likely to use all types of investigations).

CONCLUSION

There is very large variation between practices in use of investigation in patients with cancer as part of the diagnostic process. It is conceivable that the diagnostic process can be improved if investigation use was to be increased in lower use practices, although it is also possible that there is overtesting in practices with very high use of investigations, and in fact both undertesting and overtesting may co-exist.

Understanding access to general practice through the lens of candidacy: a critical review of the literature

BACKGROUND

Dominant conceptualisations of access to health care are limited, framed in terms of speed and supply. The Candidacy Framework offers a more comprehensive approach, identifying diverse influences on how access is accomplished.

AIM

To characterise how the Candidacy Framework can explain access to general practice - an increasingly fraught area of public debate and policy.

DESIGN AND SETTING

Qualitative review guided by the principles of critical interpretive synthesis.

METHOD

We conducted a literature review using an author-led approach, involving iterative analytically guided searches. Articles were eligible for inclusion if they related to the context of general practice, without geographical or time limitations. Key themes relating to access to general practice were extracted and synthesised using the Candidacy Framework.

RESULTS

A total of 229 articles were included in the final synthesis. The seven features identified in the original Candidacy Framework are highly salient to general practice. Using the lens of candidacy demonstrates that access to general practice is subject to multiple influences that are highly dynamic, contingent, and subject to constant negotiation. These influences are socioeconomically and institutionally patterned, creating risks to access for some groups. This analysis enables understanding of the barriers to access that may exist, even though general practice in the UK is free at the point of care, but also demonstrates that a Candidacy Framework specific to this setting is needed.

CONCLUSION

The Candidacy Framework has considerable value as a way of understanding access to general practice, offering new insights for policy and practice. The original framework would benefit from further customisation for the distinctive setting of general practice.

Feedback reports to the general practitioner (GP) on the patients' experiences: are GPs interested, and is this interest associated with GP factors and patient experience scores?

BACKGROUND

Patient experience feedback is key in patient centred health systems, but empirical evidence of general practitioner (GP) interest in it is sparse. We aimed to: (i) quantitatively estimate the level of GP interest for feedback reports on patient experience; (ii) explore determinants of such interest; and (iii) examine potential association between a priori interest and patient experience.

METHODS

The patient experience survey included maximum 300 randomly selected patients for each of 50 randomly selected GPs (response rate 41.4%, n = 5,623). GPs were sent a postal letter offering feedback reports and were grouped according to their replies: (i) interested in the report; (ii) not interested. Associations between interest and GP variables were assessed with Chi-square tests and multivariate logistic regression, while associations between interest and scores for 5 patient experiences scales were assessed with multilevel regression models.

RESULTS

About half (n = 21; 45.7%) of the GPs showed interest in the report by asking to receive the report. The only GP variable associated with a priori interest was being a specialist in general practice (58.6% vs. 23.5% for those without) (P = 0.021). Interest was significantly associated with the practice patient experience scale (4.1 higher score compared with those not interested, P = 0.048). Interest in the report had small and nonsignificant associations with the remaining patient experience scales.

CONCLUSIONS

Almost half of the GPs, and almost 3 in 5 of specialists in general practice, were interested in receiving a GP-specific feedback report on patient experiences. Interest in the report was generally not related to patient experience scores.

Patient Comments on the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Clinician and Group (CG-CAHPS) Survey Reflect Improvements in Provider Behaviors From Coaching

GOAL

Patient experience survey data are used to examine the patient-centeredness of care, identify areas for improvement, and monitor interventions aimed to enhance the patient experience. Most healthcare organizations measure patient experience using Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) surveys. Studies have documented the use of CAHPS closed-ended survey responses for completing public reports, monitoring internal feedback and performance, identifying areas of improvement, and evaluating interventions to improve care. However, limited evidence exists on the utility of patients' comments on CAHPS surveys for evaluating provider-level interventions. To explore this potential, we examined comments on the CAHPS Clinician and Group (CG-CAHPS) 2.0 visit survey before and after a provider intervention. The "shadow coaching" intervention had been shown to improve provider performance and patient experience scores on the CG-CAHPS overall provider rating and provider communication composite.

METHODS

We examined how patient comments on the CG-CAHPS survey differed before and after shadow coaching of 74 providers. We described the valence (tone), content, and actionability of 1,935 comments-1,051 collected before coaching and 884 collected after coaching-to see how these aspects changed before and after providers were coached.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS

Patient comments reflected improved CG-CAHPS scores after shadow coaching. The proportion of positive comments increased, and comments about doctors were more positive. Comments about time spent in the examination room decreased, apparently reflecting the decreased proportion of negative comments after coaching. Comments regarding three of the four aspects of provider communication asked on the CG-CAHPS survey were more positive after coaching (provider listens carefully, shows respect, spends enough time); the valence of comments about the fourth aspect (provider explains things in a way that is easy to understand) did not change. Also, comments describing an overall positive evaluation of the practice increased. Comments were generally less actionable after coaching, perhaps reflecting the increased positivity of the comments.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Patient comments collected before the provider intervention reflected overall improvements in provider behavior, as indicated by medium-to-large statistically significant improvements in CG-CAHPS composite scores. These results suggest that patient comments from the CG-CAHPS survey can be used as input for quality improvement or an evaluation of provider-level interventions. Tracking the valence and content of comments about providers before and after an intervention to improve care is a practical method to learn how provider behavior changes.

Ethnic inequalities in routes to diagnosis of cancer: a population-based UK cohort study

BACKGROUND

UK Asian and Black ethnic groups have poorer outcomes for some cancers and are less likely to report a positive care experience than their White counterparts. This study investigated ethnic differences in the route to diagnosis (RTD) to identify areas in patients' cancer journeys where inequalities lie, and targeted intervention might have optimum impact.

METHODS

We analysed data of 243,825 patients with 10 cancers (2006-2016) from the RTD project linked to primary care data. Crude and adjusted proportions of patients diagnosed via six routes (emergency, elective GP referral, two-week wait (2WW), screen-detected, hospital, and Other routes) were calculated by ethnicity. Adjusted odds ratios (including two-way interactions between cancer and age, sex, IMD, and ethnicity) determined cancer-specific differences in RTD by ethnicity.

RESULTS

Across the 10 cancers studied, most patients were diagnosed via 2WW (36.4%), elective GP referral (23.2%), emergency (18.2%), hospital routes (10.3%), and screening (8.61%). Patients of Other ethnic group had the highest proportion of diagnosis via the emergency route, followed by White patients. Asian and Black group were more likely to be GP-referred, with the Black and Mixed groups also more likely to follow the 2WW route. However, there were notable cancer-specific differences in the RTD by ethnicity.

CONCLUSION

Our findings suggest that, where inequalities exist, the adverse cancer outcomes among Asian and Black patients are unlikely to be arising solely from a poorer diagnostic process.

Assessing Ethnic Inequalities in Diagnostic Interval of Common Cancers: A Population-Based UK Cohort Study

BACKGROUND

This study investigated ethnic differences in diagnostic interval (DI)-the period between initial primary care presentation and diagnosis.

METHODS

We analysed the primary care-linked data of patients who reported features of seven cancers (breast, lung, prostate, colorectal, oesophagogastric, myeloma, and ovarian) one year before diagnosis. Accelerated failure time (AFT) models investigated the association between DI and ethnicity, adjusting for age, sex, deprivation, and morbidity.

RESULTS

Of 126,627 eligible participants, 92.1% were White, 1.99% Black, 1.71% Asian, 1.83% Mixed, and 2.36% were of Other ethnic backgrounds. Considering all cancer sites combined, the median (interquartile range) DI was 55 (20-175) days, longest in lung [127, (42-265) days], and shortest in breast cancer [13 (13, 8-18) days]. DI for the Black and Asian groups was 10% (AFT ratio, 95%CI 1.10, 1.05-1.14) and 16% (1.16, 1.10-1.22), respectively, longer than for the White group. Site-specific analyses revealed evidence of longer DI in Asian and Black patients with prostate, colorectal, and oesophagogastric cancer, plus Black patients with breast cancer and myeloma, and the Mixed group with lung cancer compared with White patients. DI was shorter for the Other group with lung, prostate, myeloma, and oesophagogastric cancer than the White group.

CONCLUSION

We found limited and inconsistent evidence of ethnic differences in DI among patients who reported cancer features in primary care before diagnosis. Our findings suggest that inequalities in diagnostic intervals, where present, are unlikely to be the sole explanation for ethnic variations in cancer outcomes.

Patient experiences with general practitioners: psychometric performance of the generic PEQ-GP instrument among patients with chronic conditions

BACKGROUND

Most generic patient experience instruments have not been validated specifically for persons with chronic health problems, even though they are the dominant user of GPs/family physicians.

OBJECTIVES

To assess the psychometric properties of the generic Patient Experiences with GP Questionnaire (PEQ-GP) instrument (five scales: assessment of GP, coordination, patient enablement, accessibility, and practice) in persons with chronic conditions, and to develop a short version to maximize response rates and minimize respondent fatigue in future applications.

METHODS

Secondary analysis of data from a national survey of patient experiences with general practitioners in 2018-2019 (response rate: 42.6%). The psychometric properties of PEQ-GP were assessed with exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha, supplemented with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and item response theory (IRT). A short version was constructed and evaluated based on item performance.

RESULTS

Nine hundred and seventy persons reported a chronic condition(s), the most frequent being "musculoskeletal, arthritis, other back and joints" (n = 473, 48.8%). Factor analysis identified three scales with adequate psychometric results: GP (15 items; Cronbach's alpha: 0.96), practice (3 items; Cronbach's alpha: 0.87), and accessibility (2 items; Cronbach's alpha: 0.77). Evaluation of item performance identified a 7-item short version, including a 5-item GP scale with scores with strong concordance with the 15-item scale (Intraclass Correlation Coefficient: 0.97, P < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

The generic PEQ-GP exhibits adequate psychometric performance for persons with chronic conditions. Three empirically derived PEQ-GP scales cover evaluation of the GP, accessibility, and practice. The 7-item short form minimize respondent burden, but further validation work is warranted before large-scale use.

Comparing the Attainment of the Patient's Medical Home Model across Regions in Three Canadian Provinces: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background:

The aim of this work was to show the feasibility of providing a comprehensive portrait of regional primary care performance.

Methods:

The TRANSFORMATION study used a mixed-methods concurrent study design where we analyzed survey data and case studies. Data were collected in British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia. Patient's Medical Home (PMH) pillar scores were created by calculating mean clinic-level scores across regions. Scores and qualitative themes were compared.

Results:

Participation included 86 practices (n = 1,929 patients; n = 117 clinicians). Regions had differential attainment towards PMH orientation with respect to infrastructure; community adaptiveness and accountability; and patient and family partnered care. The lowest PMH attainment for all regions were observed in connected care; accessible care; measurement, continuous quality improvement and research; and training, education and continuing professional development.

Conclusions:

Comprehensive performance reporting that draws on multiple data sources in primary care is possible. Regional portraits highlighting many of the key pillars of a PMH approach to primary care show that despite differences in policy contexts, achieving a PMH remains elusive.

Preferences for healthcare services among hypertension patients in China: a discrete choice experiment

OBJECTIVES

Our study aimed to support evidence-informed policy-making on patient-centred care by investigating preferences for healthcare services among hypertension patients.

DESIGN

We identified six attributes of healthcare services for a discrete choice experiment (DCE), and applied Bayesian-efficient design with blocking techniques to generate choice sets. After conducting the DCE, we used a mixed logit regression model to investigate patients' preferences for each attribute and analysed the heterogeneities in preferences. Estimates of willingness to pay were derived from regression coefficients.

SETTING

The DCE was conducted in Jiangsu province and Shanghai municipality in China.

PARTICIPANTS

Patients aged 18 years or older with a history of hypertension for at least 2 years and who took medications regularly were recruited.

RESULTS

Patients highly valued healthcare services that produced good treatment effects (β=4.502, p<0.001), followed by travel time to healthcare facilities within 1 hour (β=1.285, p<0.001), and the effective physician-patient communication (β=0.771, p<0.001). Continuity of care and minimal waiting time were also positive predictors (p<0.001). However, the out-of-pocket cost was a negative predictor of patients' choice (β=-0.168, p<0.001). Older adults, patients with good health-related quality of life, had comorbidities, and who were likely to visit secondary and tertiary hospitals cared more about favourable effects (p<0.05). Patients were willing to pay ¥2489 (95% CI ¥2013 to ¥2965) as long as the clinical benefits gained were substantial.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings highlight the importance of effective, convenient, efficient, coordinated and patient-centred care for chronic diseases like hypertension. Policy-makers and healthcare providers are suggested to work on aligning the service provision with patients' preferences.

Shadow Coaching Improves Patient Experience With Care, But Gains Erode Later

BACKGROUND

Health care organizations strive to improve patient care experiences. Some use one-on-one provider counseling (shadow coaching) to identify and target modifiable provider behaviors.

OBJECTIVE

We examined whether shadow coaching improves patient experience across 44 primary care practices in a large urban Federally Qualified Health Center.

RESEARCH DESIGN

Seventy-four providers with "medium" (ie, slightly below average) overall provider ratings received coaching and were compared with 246 uncoached providers. We fit mixed-effects regression models with random effects for provider (level of treatment assignment) and fixed effects for time (linear spline with a knot and "jump" at coaching date), patient characteristics and site indicators. By design, coached providers performed worse at selection; models account for the very small (0.2 point) regression-to-the-mean effects. We assessed differential effects by coach.

SUBJECTS

A total of 46,452 patients (from 320 providers) who completed the Clinician and Group Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CG-CAHPS) Visit Survey 2.0.

MEASURES

CAHPS overall provider rating and provider communication composite (scaled 0-100).

RESULTS

Providers not chosen for coaching had a nonsignificant change in performance during the period when selected providers were coached. We observed a statistically significant 2-point (small-to-medium) jump among coached providers after coaching on the CAHPS overall provider rating and provider communication score. However, these gains disappeared after 2.5 years; effects differed by coach.

CONCLUSIONS

Shadow coaching improved providers' overall performance and communication immediately after being coached. Regularly planned shadow coaching "booster" sessions might maintain or even increase the improvement gained in patient experience scores, but research examining additional coaching and optimal implementation is needed.

Ten-year assessment of a cancer fast-track programme to connect primary care with oncology: reducing time from initial symptoms to diagnosis and treatment initiation

BACKGROUND

Cancer is the second leading cause of mortality worldwide. Integrating different levels of care by implementing screening programmes, extending diagnostic tools and applying therapeutic advances may increase survival. We implemented a cancer fast-track programme (CFP) to shorten the time between suspected cancer symptoms, diagnosis and therapy initiation.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Descriptive data were collected from the 10 years since the CFP was implemented (2009-2019) at the Clinico-Malvarrosa Health Department in Valencia, Spain. General practitioners (GPs), an oncology coordinator and 11 specialists designed guidelines for GP patient referral to the CFP, including criteria for breast, digestive, gynaecological, lung, urological, dermatological, head and neck, and soft tissue cancers. Patients with enlarged lymph nodes and constitutional symptoms were also considered. On identifying patients with suspected cancer, GPs sent a case proposal to the oncology coordinator. If criteria were met, an appointment was quickly made with the patient. We analysed the timeline of each stage of the process.

RESULTS

A total of 4493 suspected cancer cases were submitted to the CFP, of whom 4019 were seen by the corresponding specialist. Cancer was confirmed in 1098 (27.3%) patients: breast cancer in 33%, urological cancers in 22%, gastrointestinal cancer in 19% and lung cancer in 15%. The median time from submission to cancer testing was 11 days, and diagnosis was reached in a median of 19 days. Treatment was started at a median of 34 days from diagnosis.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings of this study show that the interval from GP patient referral to specialist testing, cancer diagnosis and start of therapy can be reduced. Implementation of the CFP enabled most patients to begin curative intended treatment, and required only minimal resources in our setting.

Primary care experience and remission of type 2 diabetes: a population-based prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND

Remission of Type 2 diabetes is achievable through dietary change and weight loss. In the UK, lifestyle advice and referrals to weight loss programmes predominantly occur in primary care where most Type 2 diabetes is managed.

OBJECTIVE

To quantify the association between primary care experience and remission of Type 2 diabetes over 5-year follow-up.

METHODS

A prospective cohort study of adults with Type 2 diabetes registered to 49 general practices in the East of England, UK. Participants were followed-up for 5 years and completed the Consultation and Relational Empathy measure (CARE) on diabetes-specific primary care experiences over the first year after diagnosis of the disease. Remission at 5-year follow-up was measured with HbA1c levels. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression models were constructed to quantify the association between primary care experience and remission of diabetes.

RESULTS

Of 867 participants, 30% (257) achieved remission of Type 2 diabetes at 5 years. Six hundred twenty-eight had complete data at follow-up and were included in the analysis. Participants who reported higher CARE scores in the 12 months following diagnosis were more likely to achieve remission at 5 years in multivariable models; odds ratio = 1.03 (95% confidence interval = 1.01-1.05, P = 0.01).

CONCLUSION

Primary care practitioners should pay greater attention to delivering optimal patient experiences alongside clinical management of the disease as this may contribute towards remission of Type 2 diabetes. Further work is needed to examine which aspects of the primary care experience might be optimized and how these could be operationalized.

The impact of the face-to-face consultation on decisional conflict in complex decision-making in multiple sclerosis: A pilot study

Background

The role of face-to-face consultations in medicine is increasingly being challenged. Disease activity, national guidelines, life goals e.g. pregnancy, multiple therapies and side effects need to be considered on starting disease modifying treatments (DMTs) in people with multiple sclerosis (pwMS).

Objectives

We studied the impact of a face-to-face consultation on decision making, using decisional conflict (DC) as the primary outcome.

Methods

Prospective cohort study of 73 pwMS attending clinics who were making decisions about DMTs followed for one year. Prerequisites and consultation features were measured with the SURE scale for DC used as the primary outcome at baseline and at one year.

Results

The patient activation measure (PAM) was the only driver prior to the consultation associated with DC (p = 0.02) showing those less engaged were more likely to have DC. Overall, 51/73 (70%) of people made their treatment decision or reinforced a former decision during the consultation. We found making a treatment decision between the original consultation and the follow-up was associated with resolving DC (p = 0.008).

Conclusions

Patient engagement impacts DC but the HCP delivering the optimal Shared Decision Making (SDM) approach is additionally significant in reducing DC. In complex decisions there is a clear role for face-to-face consultations in current practice.

Enhancing relational care through expressions of gratitude: insights from a historical case study of almoner-patient correspondence

This paper considers insights for contemporary medical practice from an archival study of gratitude in letters exchanged between almoners at London's Brompton Hospital and patients treated at the Hospital's tuberculosis sanatorium in Frimley. In the era before the National Health Service, almoners were responsible for assessing the entitlement of patients to charitable treatment, but they also took on responsibility for aftercare and advising patients on all aspects of welfare. In addition, a major part of the work of almoners at the Brompton was to record the health and employment status of former sanatorium patients for medical research. Of over 6000 patients treated between 1905 and 1963 that were tracked for the purposes of Medical Research Council cohort studies, fewer than 6% were recorded as 'lost to follow-up'-a remarkable testimony to the success of the almoners' strategies for maintaining long-term patient engagement. A longitudinal narrative case study is presented with illustrative examples of types of gratitude extracted from a corpus of over 1500 correspondents' letters. Patients sent money, gifts and stamps in gratitude for treatment received and for the almoners' ongoing interest in their welfare. Textual analysis of letters from the almoner shows the semantic strategies that position gratitude as central to the personalisation of an institutional relationship. The Brompton letters are conceptualised as a Maussian gift-exchange ritual, in which communal ties are created, consolidated and extended through the performance of gratitude. This study implicates gratitude as central to the willingness of former patients to continue to engage with the Hospital, sometimes for decades after treatment. Suggestions are offered for how contemporary relational healthcare might be informed by this unique collection of patients' and almoners' voices.

Online patient feedback as a measure of quality in primary care: a multimethod study using correlation and qualitative analysis

OBJECTIVES

To ascertain the relationship between online patient feedback and the General Practice Patient Survey (GPPS) and the Friends and Family Test (FFT). To consider the potential benefit it may add by describing the content of public reviews found on NHS Choices for all general practices in one Clinical Commissioning Group in England.

DESIGN

Multimethod study using correlation and thematic analysis.

SETTING

1396 public online reviews and ratings on NHS Choices for all General Practices (n=70) in Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group in England.

RESULTS

Significant moderate correlations were found between the online patient feedback and the GPPS and the FFT. Three themes were developed through the qualitative analysis: (1) online feedback largely provides positive reinforcement for practice staff; (2) online feedback is used as a platform for suggesting service organisation and delivery improvements; (3) online feedback can be a source of insight into patients' expectations of care. These themes illustrate the wide range of topics commented on by patients, including their medical care, relationships with various members of staff, practice facilities, amenities and services in primary care settings.

CONCLUSIONS

This multimethod study demonstrates that online feedback found on NHS Choices is significantly correlated with established measures of quality in primary care. This suggests it has a potential use in understanding patient experience and satisfaction, and a potential use in quality improvement and patient safety. The qualitative analysis shows that this form of feedback contains helpful information about patients' experiences of general practice that provide insight into issues of quality and patient safety relevant to primary care. Health providers should offer patients multiple ways of offering feedback, including online, and should have systems in place to respond to and act on this feedback.

The discriminative power of the ReproQ: a client experience questionnaire in maternity care

Background

The aim of the ReproQuestionnaire (ReproQ) is to measure the client’s experience with maternity care, following WHO’s responsiveness model. To support quality improvement, ReproQ should be able to discriminate best from worst organisational units.

Methods

We sent questionnaires to 27,487 third-trimester pregnant women (response 31%) and to 37,230 women 6 weeks after childbirth (response 39%). For analysis we first summarized the ReproQ domain scores into three summary scores: total score (all eight domains), personal score (four personal domains), and setting score (four setting domains). Second, we estimated the proportion of variance across perinatal units attributable to the ‘actual’ difference across perinatal units using intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). Third, we assessed the ability of ReproQ to discriminate between perinatal units based on both a statistical approach using multilevel regression analyses, and a relevance approach based on the minimally important difference (MID). Finally, we compared the domain scores of the best and underperforming units.

Results

ICCs ranged between 0.004 and 0.025 for the summary scores, and between 0.002 and 0.125 for the individual domains. ReproQ was able to identify the best and worst performing units with both the statistical and relevance approach. The statistical approach was able to identify four underperforming units during childbirth (total score), while the relevance approach identified 10 underperforming units.

Conclusions

ReproQ, a valid and efficient measure of client experiences in maternity care, has the ability to discriminate well across perinatal units, and is suitable for benchmarking under routine conditions.

Relationship between general practice capitation funding and the quality of primary care in England: a cross-sectional, 3-year study

OBJECTIVE

To explore the relationship between general practice capitation funding and quality ratings based on general practice inspections.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional study pooling 3 years of primary care administrative data.

SETTING

UK primary care.

PARTICIPANTS

7310 practices (95% of all practices) in England which underwent Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections between November 2014 and December 2017.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

CQC ratings. Ordered logistic regression methods were used to predict the relationship between practice capitation funding and CQC ratings in each of five domains of quality: caring, effective, responsive, safe and well led, together with an overall practice rating.

RESULTS

Higher capitation funding per patient was significantly associated with higher CQC ratings across all five quality domains: caring (OR 1.14, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.23), effective (OR 1.08, 95% CI 1.00 to 1.16), responsive (OR 1.09, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.17), safe (OR 1.11, 95% CI 1.05 to 1.18), well led (OR 1.13, 95% CI 1.06 to 1.20) and overall rating (OR 1.13, 95% CI 1.06 to 1.19).

CONCLUSION

Higher capitation funding was consistently associated with higher ratings across all CQC domains and in the overall practice rating. This study suggests that measured dimensions of the quality of care are related to the underlying capitation funding allocated to each general practice, implying that additional capitation funding may be associated with higher levels of primary care quality.

The effect of a voucher incentive on a survey response rate in the clinical setting: a quasi-randomized controlled trial

Background

Financial rewards have been shown to be an important motivator to include normal healthy volunteers in trials. Less emphasis has been put on non-healthy volunteers. No previous study has investigated the impact of a voucher incentive for participants in a cross-sectional study in a clinical setting. The objective of this study was to examine the impact of a small voucher incentive on a survey response rate in a clinical setting at the point-of-care in a quasi-randomized controlled trial (q-RCT).

Methods

This was an ancillary study to a survey of patients subsequent to their appointment with a physician investigating physician-patient communication. We randomized participants to receive or not receive a voucher for a coffee (costs: 1 €) enclosed in the survey package. Alternation of groups was performed on a weekly basis. The exact Chi-square test was used to compare response rates between study arms.

Results

In total, 472 participants received the survey package. Among them, 249 participants were quasi-randomized to the voucher arm and 223 to the control group. The total response rate was 46%. The response rates were 48% in the voucher arm and 44% in the control group. The corresponding risk ratio was 1.09 (95% CI: 0.89, 1.32).

Conclusions

A small voucher incentive to increase the response rate in a survey investigating physician-patient communication was unlikely to have an impact. It can be speculated whether the magnitude of the voucher was too low to generate an impact. This should be further investigated in future real-world studies.

The Evaluation of Physicians' Communication Skills From Multiple Perspectives

PURPOSE

To examine how family physicians', patients', and trained clinical raters' assessments of physician-patient communication compare by analysis of individual appointments.

METHODS

Analysis of survey data from patients attending face-to-face appointments with 45 family physicians at 13 practices in England. Immediately post-appointment, patients and physicians independently completed a questionnaire including 7 items assessing communication quality. A sample of videotaped appointments was assessed by trained clinical raters, using the same 7 communication items. Patient, physician, and rater communication scores were compared using correlation coefficients.

RESULTS

Included were 503 physician-patient pairs; of those, 55 appointments were also evaluated by trained clinical raters. Physicians scored themselves, on average, lower than patients (mean physician score 74.5; mean patient score 94.4); 63.4% (319) of patient-reported scores were the maximum of 100. The mean of rater scores from 55 appointments was 57.3. There was a near-zero correlation coefficient between physician-reported and patient-reported communication scores (0.009, P = .854), and between physician-reported and trained rater-reported communication scores (-0.006, P = .69). There was a moderate and statistically significant association, however, between patient and trained-rater scores (0.35, P = .042).

CONCLUSIONS

The lack of correlation between physician scores and those of others indicates that physicians' perceptions of good communication during their appointments may differ from those of external peer raters and patients. Physicians may not be aware of how patients experience their communication practices; peer assessment of communication skills is an important approach in identifying areas for improvement.

Importance of accessibility and opening hours to overall patient experience of general practice: analysis of repeated cross-sectional data from a national patient survey

BACKGROUND

The UK government aims to improve the accessibility of general practices in England, particularly by extending opening hours in the evenings and at weekends. It is unclear how important these factors are to patients' overall experiences of general practice.

AIM

To examine associations between overall experience of general practice and patient experience of making appointments and satisfaction with opening hours.

DESIGN AND SETTING

Analysis of repeated cross-sectional data from the General Practice Patient Surveys conducted from 2011-2012 until 2013-2014. These covered 8289 general practice surgeries in England.

METHOD

Data from a national survey conducted three times over consecutive years were analysed. The outcome measure was overall experience, rated on a five-level interval scale. Associations were estimated as standardised regression coefficients, adjusted for responder characteristics and clustering within practices using multilevel linear regression.

RESULTS

In total, there were 2 912 535 responders from all practices in England (n = 8289). Experience of making appointments (β 0.24, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.24 to 0.25) and satisfaction with opening hours (β 0.15, 95% CI = 0.15 to 0.16) were modestly associated with overall experience. Overall experience was most strongly associated with GP interpersonal quality of care (β 0.34, 95% CI = 0.34 to 0.35) and receptionist helpfulness was positively associated with overall experience (β 0.16, 95% CI = 0.16 to 0.17). Other patient experience measures had minimal associations (β≤0.06). Models explained ≥90% of variation in overall experience between practices.

CONCLUSION

Patient experience of making appointments and satisfaction with opening hours were only modestly associated with overall experience. Policymakers in England should not assume that recent policies to improve access will result in large improvements in patients' overall experience of general practice.

What happens to patient experience when you want to see a doctor and you get to speak to a nurse? Observational study using data from the English General Practice Patient Survey

OBJECTIVES

To examine patient consultation preferences for seeing or speaking to a general practitioner (GP) or nurse; to estimate associations between patient-reported experiences and the type of consultation patients actually received (phone or face-to-face, GP or nurse).

DESIGN

Secondary analysis of data from the 2013 to 2014 General Practice Patient Survey.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

870 085 patients from 8005 English general practices.

OUTCOMES

Patient ratings of communication and 'trust and confidence' with the clinician they saw.

RESULTS

77.7% of patients reported wanting to see or speak to a GP, while 14.5% reported asking to see or speak to a nurse the last time they tried to make an appointment (weighted percentages). Being unable to see or speak to the practitioner type of the patients' choice was associated with lower ratings of trust and confidence and patient-rated communication. Smaller differences were found if patients wanted a face-to-face consultation and received a phone consultation instead. The greatest difference was for patients who asked to see a GP and instead spoke to a nurse for whom the adjusted mean difference in confidence and trust compared with those who wanted to see a nurse and did see a nurse was -15.8 points (95% CI -17.6 to -14.0) for confidence and trust in the practitioner and -10.5 points (95% CI -11.7 to -9.3) for net communication score, both on a 0-100 scale.

CONCLUSIONS

Patients' evaluation of their care is worse if they do not receive the type of consultation they expect, especially if they prefer a doctor but are unable to see one. New models of care should consider the potential unintended consequences for patient experience of the widespread introduction of multidisciplinary teams in general practice.

Variation and statistical reliability of publicly reported primary care diagnostic activity indicators for cancer: a cross-sectional ecological study of routine data

OBJECTIVES

Recent public reporting initiatives in England highlight general practice variation in indicators of diagnostic activity related to cancer. We aimed to quantify the size and sources of variation and the reliability of practice-level estimates of such indicators, to better inform how this information is interpreted and used for quality improvement purposes.

DESIGN

Ecological cross-sectional study.

SETTING

English primary care.

PARTICIPANTS

All general practices in England with at least 1000 patients.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Sixteen diagnostic activity indicators from the Cancer Services Public Health Profiles.

RESULTS

Mixed-effects logistic and Poisson regression showed that substantial proportions of the observed variance in practice scores reflected chance, variably so for different indicators (between 7% and 85%). However, after accounting for the role of chance, there remained substantial variation between practices (typically up to twofold variation between the 75th and 25th centiles of practice scores, and up to fourfold variation between the 90th and 10th centiles). The age and sex profile of practice populations explained some of this variation, by different amounts across indicators. Generally, the reliability of diagnostic process indicators relating to broader populations of patients most of whom do not have cancer (eg, rate of endoscopic investigations, or urgent referrals for suspected cancer (also known as 'two week wait referrals')) was high (≥0.80) or very high (≥0.90). In contrast, the reliability of diagnostic outcome indicators relating to incident cancer cases (eg, per cent of all cancer cases detected after an emergency presentation) ranged from 0.24 to 0.54, which is well below recommended thresholds (≥0.70).

CONCLUSIONS

Use of indicators of diagnostic activity in individual general practices should principally focus on process indicators which have adequate or high reliability and not outcome indicators which are unreliable at practice level.

The Norwegian patient experiences with GP questionnaire (PEQ-GP): reliability and construct validity following a national survey

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to test the reliability and validity of a new questionnaire for measuring patient experiences with general practitioners (PEQ-GP) following a national survey.

SETTING

Postal survey among patients on any of 500 GPs patient lists in Norway. GPs were stratified by practice size and geographical criteria.

PARTICIPANTS

4964 patients who had at least one consultation with their regular GP in the foregoing 12 months were included in the study. The patients were randomly selected after the selection of GPs. 2377 patients (49%) responded to the survey.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES

The items were assessed for missing data and ceiling effects. Factor structure was assessed using exploratory factor analyses. Reliability was tested with item-total correlation, Cronbach's alpha and test-retest correlations. Item discriminant validity was tested by correlating items with all scales. Construct validity was assessed through associations of scale scores with health status, the patients' general satisfaction with the services, whether the patient had been incorrectly treated by the GP and whether the patient would recommend the GP to others.

RESULTS

Item missing varied from 1.0% to 3.1%, while ceiling effects varied from 16.1% to 45.9%. The factor analyses identified three factors. Reliability statistics for scales based on these three factors, and two theoretically derived scales, showed item-total correlations ranging from 0.63 to 0.85 and Cronbach's alpha values from 0.77 to 0.93. Test-retest correlation for the five scales varied from 0.72 to 0.88. All scales had the expected association with other variables.

CONCLUSIONS

The PEQ-GP has good evidence for data quality, internal consistency and construct validity. The PEQ-GP is recommended for use in local, regional and national surveys in Norway, but further studies are needed to assess the instrument's ability to detect differences over time and between different GPs.

Evaluating patient experiences in decentralised acute care using the Picker Patient Experience Questionnaire; methodological and clinical findings

Background

Decentralised acute care services have, through the establishment of municipality acute wards (MAWs), been launched in Norway. The aim is to provide treatment for patients who otherwise would need hospitalisation. Currently there is a lack of studies investigating patient experiences in such services. The aims of this study were therefore to a) translate and validate the Picker Patient Experience Questionnaire (PPE-15) in Norwegian, and b) assess patient experiences in decentralised acute care, and potential factors associated with these experiences.

Methods

Patients were recruited from five municipal acute wards in southeastern Norway during the period from June 2014 to June 2015. Data on socio-demographics, length of stay and comorbidity (Charlson comorbidity index (CCI)) were collected. Patients completed the Picker Patient Experience Questionnaire (PPE-15) and the EuroQOL 5-dimension, 3-level version. Convergent validity of the PPE-15 was assessed by correlation of items in PPE-15 and the Nordic Patient Experience Questionnaire (NORPEQ). A retest of the PPE-15 was performed in a subgroup of patients approximately 3 weeks after baseline assessment. Test-retest agreement was assessed with Cohens’ unweighted Kappa.

Results

A total of 479 patients responded, median age 78.0 years and 41.8% men. A total of 68 patients participated in the retest. Testing of convergent validity revealed an overall weak to moderate correlation. Kappa statistics showed from fair to good test-retest agreement. Most problems were related to continuity and transition, while fewest problems were related to respect for patient preferences. A higher Charlson comorbidity score was the only variable that was negatively associated with patient experience.

Conclusion

Patients reported problems in several items of the PPE-15 after discharge from decentralised acute wards. The findings from the current study may be helpful for planning ways to improve quality of care, e.g., by providing feedback to healthcare personnel or by using patient experience as a quality indicator.

Evaluation of telephone first approach to demand management in English general practice: observational study

Objective To evaluate a "telephone first" approach, in which all patients wanting to see a general practitioner (GP) are asked to speak to a GP on the phone before being given an appointment for a face to face consultation.Design Time series and cross sectional analysis of routine healthcare data, data from national surveys, and primary survey data.Participants 147 general practices adopting the telephone first approach compared with a 10% random sample of other practices in England.Intervention Management support for workload planning and introduction of the telephone first approach provided by two commercial companies.Main outcome measures Number of consultations, total time consulting (59 telephone first practices, no controls). Patient experience (GP Patient Survey, telephone first practices plus controls). Use and costs of secondary care (hospital episode statistics, telephone first practices plus controls). The main analysis was intention to treat, with sensitivity analyses restricted to practices thought to be closely following the companies' protocols.Results After the introduction of the telephone first approach, face to face consultations decreased considerably (adjusted change within practices -38%, 95% confidence interval -45% to -29%; P<0.001). An average practice experienced a 12-fold increase in telephone consultations (1204%, 633% to 2290%; P<0.001). The average duration of both telephone and face to face consultations decreased, but there was an overall increase of 8% in the mean time spent consulting by GPs, albeit with large uncertainty on this estimate (95% confidence interval -1% to 17%; P=0.088). These average workload figures mask wide variation between practices, with some practices experiencing a substantial reduction in workload and others a large increase. Compared with other English practices in the national GP Patient Survey, in practices using the telephone first approach there was a large (20.0 percentage points, 95% confidence interval 18.2 to 21.9; P<0.001) improvement in length of time to be seen. In contrast, other scores on the GP Patient Survey were slightly more negative. Introduction of the telephone first approach was followed by a small (2.0%) increase in hospital admissions (95% confidence interval 1% to 3%; P=0.006), no initial change in emergency department attendance, but a small (2% per year) decrease in the subsequent rate of rise of emergency department attendance (1% to 3%; P=0.005). There was a small net increase in secondary care costs.Conclusions The telephone first approach shows that many problems in general practice can be dealt with over the phone. The approach does not suit all patients or practices and is not a panacea for meeting demand. There was no evidence to support claims that the approach would, on average, save costs or reduce use of secondary care.

Distinguishing variation in referral accuracy from referral threshold: analysis of a national dataset of referrals for suspected cancer

OBJECTIVES

To distinguish between variation in referral threshold and variation in accurate selection of patients for referral in fast-track referrals for possible cancer. To examine factors associated with threshold and accuracy and model the effects of changing thresholds.

DESIGN

Analysis of national data on cancer referrals from general practices in England over a 5-year period. We developed a new method to estimate specificity of referral to complement existing sensitivity. We used bivariate meta-analysis to produce summary measures and described practices in relation to these.

SETTING

5479 general practitioner (GP) practices with data relating to more than 50 cancer cases diagnosed over the 5 years.

OUTCOMES

Number of practices whose 95% confidence regions for sensitivity and specificity indicated that they were outliers in terms of either referral threshold or decision accuracy.

RESULTS

2019 practices (36.8%) were outliers in relation to referral threshold compared with 1205 practices (22%) in relation to decision accuracy. Practice age profile, cancer incidence and deprivation showed a modest association with decision accuracy but not with thresholds. If all practices shared the referral behaviour of those in the highest quintile of age-standardised referral rate, there would be a 3.3% increase in cancers detected through fast-track pathways at the cost of a 36.9% increase in urgent referrals.

CONCLUSION

This new method permits variation in referral to be described more precisely and quality improvement activities to be targeted. Changing referral thresholds without increasing accuracy will result in modest effects on detection rates and a large increase in demand on diagnostic services.

Improving patient experience in primary care: a multimethod programme of research on the measurement and improvement of patient experience

Background

There has been an increased focus towards improving quality of care within the NHS in the last 15 years; as part of this, there has been an emphasis on the importance of patient feedback within policy, through National Service Frameworks and the Quality and Outcomes Framework. The development and administration of large-scale national patient surveys to gather representative data on patient experience, such as the national GP Patient Survey in primary care, has been one such initiative. However, it remains unclear how the survey is used by patients and what impact the data may have on practice.

Objectives

Our research aimed to gain insight into how different patients use surveys to record experiences of general practice; how primary care staff respond to feedback; and how to engage primary care staff in responding to feedback.

Methods

We used methods including quantitative survey analyses, focus groups, interviews, an exploratory trial and an experimental vignette study.

Results

(1)Understanding patient experience data. Patients readily criticised their care when reviewing consultations on video, although they were reluctant to be critical when completing questionnaires. When trained raters judged communication during a consultation to be poor, a substantial proportion of patients rated the doctor as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. Absolute scores on questionnaire surveys should be treated with caution; they may present an overoptimistic view of general practitioner (GP) care. However, relative rankings to identify GPs who are better or poorer at communicating may be acceptable, as long as statistically reliable figures are obtained. Most patients have a particular GP whom they prefer to see; however, up to 40% of people who have such a preference are unable regularly to see the doctor of their choice. Users of out-of-hours care reported worse experiences when the service was run by a commercial provider than when it was run by a not-for profit or NHS provider. (2)Understanding patient experience in minority ethnic groups. Asian respondents to the GP Patient Survey tend to be registered with practices with generally low scores, explaining about half of the difference in the poorer reported experiences of South Asian patients than white British patients. We found no evidence that South Asian patients used response scales differently. When viewing the same consultation in an experimental vignette study, South Asian respondents gave higher scores than white British respondents. This suggests that the low scores given by South Asian respondents in patient experience surveys reflect care that is genuinely worse than that experienced by their white British counterparts. We also found that service users of mixed or Asian ethnicity reported lower scores than white respondents when rating out-of-hours services. (3)Using patient experience data. We found that measuring GP–patient communication at practice level masks variation between how good individual doctors are within a practice. In general practices and in out-of-hours centres, staff were sceptical about the value of patient surveys and their ability to support service reconfiguration and quality improvement. In both settings, surveys were deemed necessary but not sufficient. Staff expressed a preference for free-text comments, as these provided more tangible, actionable data. An exploratory trial of real-time feedback (RTF) found that only 2.5% of consulting patients left feedback using touch screens in the waiting room, although more did so when reminded by staff. The representativeness of responding patients remains to be evaluated. Staff were broadly positive about using RTF, and practices valued the ability to include their own questions. Staff benefited from having a facilitated session and protected time to discuss patient feedback.

Conclusions

Our findings demonstrate the importance of patient experience feedback as a means of informing NHS care, and confirm that surveys are a valuable resource for monitoring national trends in quality of care. However, surveys may be insufficient in themselves to fully capture patient feedback, and in practice GPs rarely used the results of surveys for quality improvement. The impact of patient surveys appears to be limited and effort should be invested in making the results of surveys more meaningful to practice staff. There were several limitations of this programme of research. Practice recruitment for our in-hours studies took place in two broad geographical areas, which may not be fully representative of practices nationally. Our focus was on patient experience in primary care; secondary care settings may face different challenges in implementing quality improvement initiatives driven by patient feedback. Recommendations for future research include consideration of alternative feedback methods to better support patients to identify poor care; investigation into the factors driving poorer experiences of communication in South Asian patient groups; further investigation of how best to deliver patient feedback to clinicians to engage them and to foster quality improvement; and further research to support the development and implementation of interventions aiming to improve care when deficiencies in patient experience of care are identified.

Funding

The National Institute for Health Research Programme Grants for Applied Research programme.

Investigating the meaning of 'good' or 'very good' patient evaluations of care in English general practice: a mixed methods study

OBJECTIVE

To examine concordance between responses to patient experience survey items evaluating doctors' interpersonal skills, and subsequent patient interview accounts of their experiences of care.

DESIGN

Mixed methods study integrating data from patient questionnaires completed immediately after a video-recorded face-to-face consultation with a general practitioner (GP) and subsequent interviews with the same patients which included playback of the recording.

SETTING

12 general practices in rural, urban and inner city locations in six areas in England.

PARTICIPANTS

50 patients (66% female, aged 19-96 years) consulting face-to-face with 32 participating GPs.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Positive responses to interpersonal skills items in a postconsultation questionnaire ('good' and 'very good') were compared with experiences reported during subsequent video elicitation interview (categorised as positive, negative or neutral by independent clinical raters) when reviewing that aspect of care.

RESULTS

We extracted 230 textual statements from 50 interview transcripts which related to the evaluation of GPs' interpersonal skills. Raters classified 70.9% (n=163) of these statements as positive, 19.6% (n=45) neutral and 9.6% (n=22) negative. Comments made by individual patients during interviews did not always express the same sentiment as their responses to the questionnaire. Where questionnaire responses indicated that interpersonal skills were 'very good', 84.6% of interview statements concerning that item were classified as positive. However, where patients rated interpersonal skills as 'good', only 41.9% of interview statements were classified as positive, and 18.9% as negative.

CONCLUSIONS

Positive responses on patient experience questionnaires can mask important negative experiences which patients describe in subsequent interviews. The interpretation of absolute patient experience scores in feedback and public reporting should be done with caution, and clinicians should not be complacent following receipt of 'good' feedback. Relative scores are more easily interpretable when used to compare the performance of providers.

Wasting the doctor's time? A video-elicitation interview study with patients in primary care

Reaching a decision about whether and when to visit the doctor can be a difficult process for the patient. An early visit may cause the doctor to wonder why the patient chose to consult when the disease was self-limiting and symptoms would have settled without medical input. A late visit may cause the doctor to express dismay that the patient waited so long before consulting. In the UK primary care context of constrained resources and government calls for cautious healthcare spending, there is all the more pressure on both doctor and patient to meet only when necessary. A tendency on the part of health professionals to judge patients' decisions to consult as appropriate or not is already described. What is less well explored is the patient's experience of such judgment. Drawing on data from 52 video-elicitation interviews conducted in the English primary care setting, the present paper examines how patients seek to legitimise their decision to consult, and their struggles in doing so. The concern over wasting the doctor's time is expressed repeatedly through patients' narratives. Referring to the sociological literature, the history of 'trivia' in defining the role of general practice is discussed, and current public discourses seeking to assist the patient in developing appropriate consulting behaviour are considered and problematised. Whilst the patient is expected to have sufficient insight to inform timely consulting behaviour, it becomes clear that any attempt on the part of doctor or patient to define legitimate help-seeking is in fact elusive. Despite this, a significant moral dimension to what is deemed appropriate consulting by doctors and patients remains. The notion of candidacy is suggested as a suitable framework and way forward for encompassing these struggles to negotiate eligibility for medical time.

Investigating the relationship between consultation length and patient experience: a cross-sectional study in primary care

BACKGROUND

Longer consultations in primary care have been linked with better quality of care and improved health-related outcomes. However, there is little evidence of any potential association between consultation length and patient experience.

AIM

To examine the relationship between consultation length and patient-reported communication, trust and confidence in the doctor, and overall satisfaction.

DESIGN AND SETTING

Analysis of 440 videorecorded consultations and associated patient experience questionnaires from 13 primary care practices in England.

METHOD

Patients attending a face-to-face consultation with participating GPs consented to having their consultations videoed and completed a questionnaire. Consultation length was calculated from the videorecording. Linear regression (adjusting for patient and doctor demographics) was used to investigate associations between patient experience (overall communication, trust and confidence, and overall satisfaction) and consultation length.

RESULTS

There was no evidence that consultation length was associated with any of the three measures of patient experience (P >0.3 for all). Adjusted changes on a 0-100 scale per additional minute of consultation were: communication score 0.02 (95% confidence interval [CI] = -0.20 to 0.25), trust and confidence in the doctor 0.07 (95% CI = -0.27 to 0.41), and satisfaction -0.14 (95% CI = -0.46 to 0.18).

CONCLUSION

The authors found no association between patient experience measures of communication and consultation length, and patients may sometimes report good experiences from very short consultations. However, longer consultations may be required to achieve clinical effectiveness and patient safety: aspects also important for achieving high quality of care. Future research should continue to study the benefits of longer consultations, particularly for patients with complex multiple conditions.

Test-retest stability of patient experience items derived from the national GP patient survey

Purpose

The validity and reliability of various items on the GP Patient Survey (GPPS) survey have been reported, however stability of patient responses over time has not been tested. The purpose of this study was to determine the test–retest reliability of the core items from the GPPS.

Methods

Patients who had recently consulted participating GPs in five general practices across the South West England were sent a postal questionnaire comprising of 54 items concerning their experience of their consultation and the care they received from the GP practice. Patients returning the questionnaire within 3 weeks of mail-out were sent a second identical (retest) questionnaire. Stability of responses was assessed by raw agreement rates and Cohen’s kappa (for categorical response items) and intraclass correlation coefficients and means (for ordinal response items).

Results

348 of 597 Patients returned a retest questionnaire (58.3 % response rate). In comparison to the test phase, patients responding to the retest phase were older and more likely to have white British ethnicity. Raw agreement rates for the 33 categorical items ranged from 66 to 100 % (mean 88 %) while the kappa coefficients ranged from 0.00 to 1.00 (mean 0.53). Intraclass correlation coefficients for the 21 ordinal items averaged 0.67 (range 0.44–0.77).

Conclusions

Formal testing of items from the national GP patient survey examining patient experience in primary care highlighted their acceptable temporal stability several weeks following a GP consultation.

Rating Communication in GP Consultations: The Association Between Ratings Made by Patients and Trained Clinical Raters

Patient evaluations of physician communication are widely used, but we know little about how these relate to professionally agreed norms of communication quality. We report an investigation into the association between patient assessments of communication quality and an observer-rated measure of communication competence. Consent was obtained to video record consultations with Family Practitioners in England, following which patients rated the physician’s communication skills. A sample of consultation videos was subsequently evaluated by trained clinical raters using an instrument derived from the Calgary-Cambridge guide to the medical interview. Consultations scored highly for communication by clinical raters were also scored highly by patients. However, when clinical raters judged communication to be of lower quality, patient scores ranged from “poor” to “very good.” Some patients may be inhibited from rating poor communication negatively. Patient evaluations can be useful for measuring relative performance of physicians’ communication skills, but absolute scores should be interpreted with caution.

Extended opening hours and patient experience of general practice in England: multilevel regression analysis of a national patient survey

Background

The UK government plans to extend the opening hours of general practices in England. The ‘extended hours access scheme’ pays practices for providing appointments outside core times (08:00 to 18.30, Monday to Friday) for at least 30 min per 1000 registered patients each week.

Objective

To determine the association between extended hours access scheme participation and patient experience.

Methods

Retrospective analysis of a national cross-sectional survey completed by questionnaire (General Practice Patient Survey 2013–2014); 903 357 survey respondents aged ≥18 years old and registered to 8005 general practices formed the study population. Outcome measures were satisfaction with opening hours, experience of making an appointment and overall experience (on five-level interval scales from 0 to 100). Mean differences between scheme participation groups were estimated using multilevel random-effects regression, propensity score matching and instrumental variable analysis.

Results

Most patients were very (37.2%) or fairly satisfied (42.7%) with the opening hours of their general practices; results were similar for experience of making an appointment and overall experience. Most general practices participated in the extended hours access scheme (73.9%). Mean differences in outcome measures between scheme participants and non-participants were positive but small across estimation methods (mean differences ≤1.79). For example, scheme participation was associated with a 1.25 (95% CI 0.96 to 1.55) increase in satisfaction with opening hours using multilevel regression; this association was slightly greater when patients could not take time off work to see a general practitioner (2.08, 95% CI 1.53 to 2.63).

Conclusions

Participation in the extended hours access scheme has a limited association with three patient experience measures. This questions expected impacts of current plans to extend opening hours on patient experience.

Doctors' engagements with patient experience surveys in primary and secondary care: a qualitative study

Background

Patient experience surveys are increasingly important in the measurement of, and attempts to improve, health‐care quality. To date, little research has focused upon doctors’ attitudes to surveys which give them personalized feedback.

Aim

This paper explores doctors’ perceptions of patient experience surveys in primary and secondary care settings in order to deepen understandings of how doctors view the plausibility of such surveys.

Design, setting and participants

We conducted a qualitative study with doctors in two regions of England, involving in‐depth semi‐structured interviews with doctors working in primary care (n = 21) and secondary care (n = 20) settings. The doctors in both settings had recently received individualized feedback from patient experience surveys.

Findings

Doctors in both settings express strong personal commitments to incorporating patient feedback in quality improvement efforts. However, they also concurrently express strong negative views about the credibility of survey findings and patients’ motivations and competence in providing feedback. Thus, individual doctors demonstrate contradictory views regarding the plausibility of patient surveys, leading to complex, varied and on balance negative engagements with patient feedback.

Discussion

Doctors’ contradictory views towards patient experience surveys are likely to limit the impact of such surveys in quality improvement initiatives in primary and secondary care. We highlight the need for ‘sensegiving’ initiatives (i.e. attempts to influence perceptions by communicating particular ideas, narratives and visions) to engage with doctors regarding the plausibility of patient experience surveys.

Conclusion

This study highlights the importance of engaging with doctors’ views about patient experience surveys when developing quality improvement initiatives.

Language spoken at home and the association between ethnicity and doctor-patient communication in primary care: analysis of survey data for South Asian and White British patients

OBJECTIVES

To investigate if language spoken at home mediates the relationship between ethnicity and doctor-patient communication for South Asian and White British patients.

METHODS

We conducted secondary analysis of patient experience survey data collected from 5870 patients across 25 English general practices. Mixed effect linear regression estimated the difference in composite general practitioner-patient communication scores between White British and South Asian patients, controlling for practice, patient demographics and patient language.

RESULTS

There was strong evidence of an association between doctor-patient communication scores and ethnicity. South Asian patients reported scores averaging 3.0 percentage points lower (scale of 0-100) than White British patients (95% CI -4.9 to -1.1, p=0.002). This difference reduced to 1.4 points (95% CI -3.1 to 0.4) after accounting for speaking a non-English language at home; respondents who spoke a non-English language at home reported lower scores than English-speakers (adjusted difference 3.3 points, 95% CI -6.4 to -0.2).

CONCLUSIONS

South Asian patients rate communication lower than White British patients within the same practices and with similar demographics. Our analysis further shows that this disparity is largely mediated by language.

Patient Experience of Australian General Practices

The number of data-based research articles focusing on patient sociodemographic profiling and experience with healthcare practices is still relatively small. One of the reasons for this relative lack of research is that categorizing patients into different demographic groups can lead to significant reductions in sample numbers for homogeneous subgroups. The aim of this article is to identify problems and issues when dealing with big data that contains information at two levels: patient experience of their general practice, and scores received by practices. The Practice Accreditation and Improvement Survey (PAIS) consisting of 27 five-point Likert items and 11 sociodemographic questions is a Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP)-endorsed instrument for seeking patient views as part of the accreditation of Australian general practices. The data were collected during the 3-year period May 2011-July 2014, during which time PAIS was completed for 3734 individual general practices throughout Australia involving 312,334 anonymous patients. This represents over 60% of practices in Australia, and ∼75% of practices that undergo voluntary accreditation. The sampling method for each general practice was convenience sampling. The results of our analysis show how sociodemographic profiles of Australian patients can affect their ratings of practices and also how the location of the practice (State/Territory, remote access area) can affect patient experience. These preliminary findings can act as an initial set of results against which future studies in patient experience trends can be developed and measured in Australia. Also, the methods used in this article provide a methodological framework for future patient experience researchers to use when dealing with data that contain information at two levels, such as the patient and practice. Finally, the outcomes demonstrate that different subgroups can experience healthcare provision differently, especially indigenous patients and young patients. The implications of these findings for healthcare policy and priorities will need to be further investigated.

Feedback on SMS reminders to encourage adherence among patients taking antipsychotic medication: a cross-sectional survey nested within a randomised trial

OBJECTIVES

To explore feedback on tailored SMS reminders to encourage medication adherence and outpatient treatment among patients taking antipsychotic medication, and associations related to the feedback.

DESIGN

A cross-sectional survey nested within a nationwide randomised clinical trial ("Mobile.Net" ISRCTN27704027).

SETTING

Psychiatric outpatient care in Finland.

PARTICIPANTS

Between September 2012 and December 2013, 403 of 558 adults with antipsychotic medication responded after 12 months of SMS intervention.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE

Feedback was gathered with a structured questionnaire based on Technology Acceptance Model theory. Data were analysed by Pearson's χ(2) test, binary logistic regression and stepwise multiple regression analyses.

RESULTS

Almost all participants (98%) found the SMS reminders easy to use and 87% felt that the SMS did not cause harm. About three-quarters (72%) were satisfied with the SMS received, and 61% found it useful. Divorced people were particularly prone to find SMS reminders useful (χ(2)=13.17, df=6, p=0.04), and people seeking employment were more often 'fully satisfied' with the SMS compared with other groups (χ(2)=10.82, df=4, p=0.029). People who were older at first contact with psychiatric services were more often 'fully satisfied' than younger groups (OR=1.02, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.04, p=0.007).

CONCLUSIONS

The feedback of patients taking antipsychotic medication on SMS services was generally positive. Overall, people were quite satisfied despite considerable variation in their sociodemographic background and illness history. Our results endorse that the use of simple easy-to-use existing technology, such as mobile phones and SMS, is acceptable in psychiatric outpatient services. Moreover, people using psychiatric outpatient services are able to use this technology. This acceptable and accessible technology can be easily tailored to each patient's needs and could be customised to the needs of the isolated or jobless. This is an area in which much careful evaluation is needed.

Bad apples or spoiled barrels? Multilevel modelling analysis of variation in high-risk prescribing in Scotland between general practitioners and between the practices they work in

OBJECTIVES

Primary care high-risk prescribing causes significant harm, but it is unclear if it is largely driven by individuals (a 'bad apple' problem) or by practices having higher or lower risk prescribing cultures (a 'spoiled barrel' problem). The study aimed to examine the extent of variation in high-risk prescribing between individual prescribers and between the practices they work in.

DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

Multilevel logistic regression modelling of routine cross-sectional data from 38 Scottish general practices for 181,010 encounters between 398 general practitioners (GPs) and 26,539 patients particularly vulnerable to adverse drug events (ADEs) of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) due to age, comorbidity or co-prescribing.

OUTCOME MEASURE

Initiation of a new NSAID prescription in an encounter between GPs and eligible patients.

RESULTS

A new high-risk NSAID was initiated in 1953 encounters (1.1% of encounters, 7.4% of patients). Older patients, those with more vulnerabilities to NSAID ADEs and those with polypharmacy were less likely to have a high-risk NSAID initiated, consistent with GPs generally recognising the risk of NSAIDs in eligible patients. Male GPs were more likely to initiate a high-risk NSAID than female GPs (OR 1.73, 95% CI 1.39 to 2.16). After accounting for patient characteristics, 4.2% (95% CI 2.1 to 8.3) of the variation in high-risk NSAID prescribing was attributable to variation between practices, and 14.2% (95% CI 11.4 to 17.3) to variation between GPs. Three practices had statistically higher than average high-risk prescribing, but only 15.7% of GPs with higher than average high-risk prescribing and 18.5% of patients receiving such a prescription were in these practices.

CONCLUSIONS

There was much more variation in high-risk prescribing between GPs than between practices, and only targeting practices with higher than average rates will miss most high-risk NSAID prescribing. Primary care prescribing safety improvement should ideally target all practices, but encourage practices to consider and act on variation between prescribers in the practice.

Establishing the validity of English GP Patient Survey items evaluating out-of-hours care

Background

A 2014 national audit used the English General Practice Patient Survey (GPPS) to compare service users’ experience of out-of-hours general practitioner (GP) services, yet there is no published evidence on the validity of these GPPS items.

Objectives

Establish the construct and concurrent validity of GPPS items evaluating service users’ experience of GP out-of-hours care.

Methods

Cross-sectional postal survey of service users (n=1396) of six English out-of-hours providers. Participants reported on four GPPS items evaluating out-of-hours care (three items modified following cognitive interviews with service users), and 14 evaluative items from the Out-of-hours Patient Questionnaire (OPQ). Construct validity was assessed through correlations between any reliable (Cochran's α>0.7) scales, as suggested by a principal component analysis of the modified GPPS items, with the ‘entry access’ (four items) and ‘consultation satisfaction’ (10 items) OPQ subscales. Concurrent validity was determined by investigating whether each modified GPPS item was associated with thematically related items from the OPQ using linear regressions.

Results

The modified GPPS item-set formed a single scale (α=0.77), which summarised the two-component structure of the OPQ moderately well; explaining 39.7% of variation in the ‘entry access’ scores (r=0.63) and 44.0% of variation in the ‘consultation satisfaction’ scores (r=0.66), demonstrating acceptable construct validity. Concurrent validity was verified as each modified GPPS item was highly associated with a distinct set of related items from the OPQ.

Conclusions

Minor modifications are required for the English GPPS items evaluating out-of-hours care to improve comprehension by service users. A modified question set was demonstrated to comprise a valid measure of service users’ overall satisfaction with out-of-hours care received. This demonstrates the potential for the use of as few as four items in benchmarking providers and assisting services in identifying, implementing and assessing quality improvement initiatives.

Web-based textual analysis of free-text patient experience comments from a survey in primary care

BACKGROUND

Open-ended questions eliciting free-text comments have been widely adopted in surveys of patient experience. Analysis of free text comments can provide deeper or new insight, identify areas for action, and initiate further investigation. Also, they may be a promising way to progress from documentation of patient experience to achieving quality improvement. The usual methods of analyzing free-text comments are known to be time and resource intensive. To efficiently deal with a large amount of free-text, new methods of rapidly summarizing and characterizing the text are being explored.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of using freely available Web-based text processing tools (text clouds, distinctive word extraction, key words in context) for extracting useful information from large amounts of free-text commentary about patient experience, as an alternative to more resource intensive analytic methods.

METHODS

We collected free-text responses to a broad, open-ended question on patients' experience of primary care in a cross-sectional postal survey of patients recently consulting doctors in 25 English general practices. We encoded the responses to text files which were then uploaded to three Web-based textual processing tools. The tools we used were two text cloud creators: TagCrowd for unigrams, and Many Eyes for bigrams; and Voyant Tools, a Web-based reading tool that can extract distinctive words and perform Keyword in Context (KWIC) analysis. The association of patients' experience scores with the occurrence of certain words was tested with logistic regression analysis. KWIC analysis was also performed to gain insight into the use of a significant word.

RESULTS

In total, 3426 free-text responses were received from 7721 patients (comment rate: 44.4%). The five most frequent words in the patients' comments were "doctor", "appointment", "surgery", "practice", and "time". The three most frequent two-word combinations were "reception staff", "excellent service", and "two weeks". The regression analysis showed that the occurrence of the word "excellent" in the comments was significantly associated with a better patient experience (OR=1.96, 95%CI=1.63-2.34), while "rude" was significantly associated with a worse experience (OR=0.53, 95%CI=0.46-0.60). The KWIC results revealed that 49 of the 78 (63%) occurrences of the word "rude" in the comments were related to receptionists and 17(22%) were related to doctors.

CONCLUSIONS

Web-based text processing tools can extract useful information from free-text comments and the output may serve as a springboard for further investigation. Text clouds, distinctive words extraction and KWIC analysis show promise in quick evaluation of unstructured patient feedback. The results are easily understandable, but may require further probing such as KWIC analysis to establish the context. Future research should explore whether more sophisticated methods of textual analysis (eg, sentiment analysis, natural language processing) could add additional levels of understanding.