IMPROVING THE PATIENT EXPERIENCE - 10 KEY POINTS FOR LEADERS AND MANAGERS

¹Governor, Moorfields Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom, ²JJ Consulting Healthcare Management Ltd, England and Wales, United Kingdom

Background: First-rate patient experience is a central pillar of quality healthcare provision. A recent British Medical Journal systematic review of 55 studies showed strong evidence that high quality patient-centred experience is associated with improved clinical effectiveness, patient safety and better outcomes. Evidence suggests patient safety in the NHS in the UK and globally sometimes lacks focus on patient experience, and many patient experience measures do not include physiotherapy. Measuring, monitoring and assessing patient experience must be a key function for healthcare organisations to gather assurance of safety and quality and provide high-quality care. The importance of purposeful physiotherapy leadership and management coupled with a strong patient-centred culture are critical to achieving best outcomes.

Purpose: · To raise awareness of the need to improve patient experience and to demonstrate how patient experience in physiotherapy and more widely in healthcare provision can be significantly improved and assured through ten key elements of leadership and management which need to be integral to physiotherapy leadership practice.
· To provide a “toolbox” for incorporation into leadership and management practice.

Methods: Within our healthcare organisation, ten essential elements of leadership roles to ensure good patient experience have been incorporated to develop a culture which supports the provision of consistently safe, excellent patient care. The presentation highlights these leadership roles including driving the patient experience agenda, methods of patient feedback including development of action plans for improvement, leadership visibility and accessibility, empowerment of staff, behaviours which reflect the patient experience vision, clear improvement objectives, relevant and timely data collection, analysis and action plans, participation at all levels, time and space to achieve improvement objectives, incorporation into processes and procedures and ensuring sustainability.

Results: The plan to support improvement of consistently safe, excellent patient care was implemented two years ago through raising awareness of ten key practices for leaders, managers and staff at all levels. This resulted in measurable improvement in effectiveness, patient safety and quality outcomes. 96% of participants in the “Friends and Family test” recommend the organisation for high quality care, and the organisation is within the top 10 UK rated places to work by staff. Examples of data and a range of useful references are shared.

Conclusion(s): Ensuring that physiotherapy services have a culture of strong and sustained patient experience performance is one of the greatest change efforts the service can and should take on.

Implications: It is important that physiotherapists and their leaders acknowledge and develop their work practices to incorporate patient care, which recognises that the patient experience starts with human factors - as patients and carers see them - and links back to clinical care and how services are provided. Many good examples of patient experience do not need large financial investment, but rather, they start with skilled leadership.

Funding acknowledgements: Not applicable

Topic: Professional issues

Ethics approval: Not applicable

All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.