22.07.14
Friends and Family Test to be rolled out to all GPs
From January next year all GP practices in England will have to provide monthly data on the Friends and Family Test (FFT), following changes announced by NHS England.
In a letter to all GP practices, Giles Wilmore, director of Patient and Public Voice and Information at NHS England, told them that they will be required to submit monthly FFT data from January 2015, which will include anonymous patient feedback via a standardised FFT question, plus at least one follow up question which allows the opportunity to provide free text comment.
NHS England stated that the roll out of the FFT will mean every patient will have the opportunity to provide feedback on the services they have received, enabling the public to make better informed choices about the services they use.
The new guidance – which is interactive and contains advice, videos, supporting materials and case studies – has been compiled after an in-depth NHS England review of the FFT in A&E and inpatient services since it was introduced in April 2013.
However, when reviewing FFT against its original ambitions, the reviewers stated that “it is clear that it is not meeting these requirements equally”.
The report said: “Its value as a tool for local service improvement is currently outstripping its utility for performance management. The question we must ask is whether we can reasonably expect a single way of measuring patient experience to excel in both of these areas.”
When looking at what is required from patient feedback, it was recommended that different tools for different purposes should be deployed and “we should not expect one measure to answer all of our requirements”.
It was recommended that FFT should continue to be used alongside other ways of measuring patient experience, such as the CQC patient survey programme and the GP Patient Survey. But it was suggested that there should be “clarity of purpose for FFT”.
But from 1 December 2014, the FFT will be rolled out to GP practices, and from 1 January 2015, to mental health and community services. It will further be extended from 1 April 2015 to NHS dental practices and patient transport services as well, covering acute hospitals outpatients and day cases.
Defending the FFT and the proposed changes, Tim Kelsey, NHS England’s national director for Patients and Information, said: “The key aim in setting up the FFT was for the results to be transparently published and available to inform patient decisions and choice
“By April 2015, we will have introduced the FFT to millions of patients across thousands of providers of NHS funded services including GP and dental practices, ambulance, mental health and community services, as well as outpatients.
“We are going to continue to look at what the FFT data tells us and how we can continue to improve the way it is collected and used. This will include work to examine how we can make FFT more comparable to further increase its future usefulness in helping patients make informed choices. This reinforces our commitment to transparency, driving up standards and listening to the voice of patients from all backgrounds and communities in our society.”
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