The Care Quality Commission (CQC) and Healthwatch England want more people with chronic and long-term conditions to give feedback on their care.
As health and social care services face increasing demand, understanding the experience of those using services is more critical than ever. Giving feedback on your or a loved one's care helps identify unsafe practices so they can be improved and highlight where support is working well.
CQC and Healthwatch England surveyed 1,000 people with chronic and long-term conditions about their experiences using health and social care services. The survey found that more than half (54%) are not being regularly asked by services to feed back about their care, and almost two-thirds (62%) do not know how to. However, most people (71%), said they would be willing to provide feedback to help the care and services improve.
When asked about their recent experience of accessing care, more than two-thirds (69%) were able to be seen by their service within three weeks. More than a quarter (27%) of people said the biggest challenge they faced accessing health and social care was longer waiting times, and a fifth (21%) said ineffective or inaccessible booking systems were the main issue.
Of people aged 18-24 almost a quarter (24%) said they waited up to six months for an appointment and one in five (21%) reported they do not feel their condition is taken seriously by the service involved. However, when it comes to providing feedback, 18–24-year-olds were more likely to share their experience of care, 32% compared to 6% of those over 75 have provided feedback in the last 12 months.
Gathering people’s feedback about services and the care they provide is important in identifying and addressing inequalities so that care can be improved. Not being able to access the right care and support at the right time increases the risk of an individual’s health deteriorating. CQC is committed to addressing health and social care inequalities and reducing barriers to care.
Kate Terroni, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care, Integrated Care & Interim Chief Operating Officer at CQC said:
"People with chronic and long-term conditions often use health and social care services more and their insight into the care they receive is invaluable to us. Our research shows that people want to give feedback to help improve the care services in their community and to help protect people and their loved ones from harm. It is vital that people feel empowered to speak up about their care, we want to learn from their lived experiences, champion their voice and ensure people get good safe care.
"CQC receives over a thousand pieces of feedback from people about their care every month, highlighting good care as well as drawing attention to where care needs to improve – we use this information to inform our inspection work, to help keep people safe and to support improvements. Information of concern triggers around half our inspection activity, which is prompted by new information provided to us by people using or working in services. You can provide feedback to CQC using our Give feedback on care form or to our contact centre on 03000 61616."
Louise Ansari, national director at Healthwatch England said:
"Patient feedback is a vital source of information to help NHS and social care decision-makers understand if care is working. That's why it's concerning to hear that many people living with chronic conditions have not been asked for their views.
"As we head into the winter, the NHS is facing pressures across the whole system. Patient feedback can help by enabling the NHS to spot issues and identify where services may need more help. It's important to make more people feel empowered to share their experience, be it good or bad, and aware of how their feedback is helping improve support for them and their community."
CQC in collaboration with providers wants to champion people’s voices and encourage them to routinely feedback on their care, learning from their experiences to drive improvements through regulation, and ensure people receive good safe care. Approximately 15 million people in England have conditions that impacts their physical and mental health and is often an invisible illness, regularly cared for with support from health and social care services and their friends, family and carers.
Ruthe Isden, Interim Director at the Richmond Group of Charities said:
"As a group of Charities representing millions of people living with long term conditions, we know how important it is to make sure people's voices are heard loud and clear in any conversations about improving services and support. People managing multiple or complex health issues are often relying on a number of services to help them stay well and manage their health issues. As a result, when things aren’t working well it is usually those grappling with the most significant needs who end up bearing the brunt. It’s also no surprise that this research shows greater continuity of care and better coordination was number one priority for people living the chronic conditions.
"The burden of poor health also falls hardest on those in the least advantaged circumstances, which is why it is so important that patient feedback includes the voices and experiences of those who have been underrepresented to date. That’s why we're pleased to back CQC and Healthwatch England’s campaign to make sure more people, in more places know how to share their experiences of care."
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Notes to editors
Because We All Care campaign
The Because We All Care campaign aims to help services identify and address quality issues and support patients by encouraging people to share feedback on individual experiences of health and social care services in England. The campaign was first launched by CQC and Healthwatch England in July 2020 and over 65,000 people so far have shared their ideas and experiences of how care can be made better.
Everyone has different experiences of care, so we want to hear feedback on health and social care from everyone. Tell us about your care to ensure services work better for us all. People can give feedback on their experiences of care, or those of someone they care for, on the CQC website or if they wish to raise a concern about their care, or about the care received by a loved one or by someone they care for they can let CQC know by filling out our Give feedback on care form, or calling our contact centre on 03000 616161.
All providers of NHS care or publicly funded adult social care must meet accessible information standards, that includes NHS hospitals, GP services, dentists and publicly funded care homes. It applied to people who have an information or communication need due to disability, impairment and/or sensory loss. https://www.cqc.org.uk/guidance-providers/meeting-accessible-information-standard.
Contacting us if you're deaf or hard of hearing - We use a service called SignLive. SignLive gives you an interpreter so you can talk to us with sign language. You can use it on your smartphone, tablet or computer: https://www.cqc.org.uk/contact-us/general-enquiries/get-help-contacting-us-if-youre-deaf-or-hard-hearing.
About Healthwatch England
Healthwatch is your health and social care champion. If you use GPs and hospitals, dentists, pharmacies, care homes or other support services, we want to hear about your experiences. As an independent statutory body, we have the power to make sure NHS leaders and other decision makers listen to your feedback and improve standards of care. We can also help you to find reliable and trustworthy information and advice. Last year, we helped nearly two million people like you to have your say and get the support you need. www.healthwatch.co.uk