Patient feedback on Welsh pharmacies to be made public
Practice The Welsh government is looking to collect and publish patient feedback on pharmacy services as part of a drive to ensure patients receive high quality healthcare in the country.
The Welsh government is planning to collect and publish patient feedback on pharmacy services as part of a drive to ensure patients receive high-quality healthcare in the principality.
The plans will give patients a "bigger voice in driving up care quality", while clinical audits and outcome reviews will be used to "test the quality of care and drive improvement", according to health minister Lesley Griffiths.
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"We must be able to show clearly that we are doing the right thing, in the right way, in the right place, at the right time and with the right staff" Lesley Griffiths, Welsh Assembly |
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The plans built on measures in place already and were designed to ensure "every patient, every day, gets excellent quality care wherever and whenever they receive it", Ms Griffiths said. "We must be able to show clearly that we are doing the right thing, in the right way, in the right place, at the right time and with the right staff." The details of how the initiative would apply to community pharmacy had not been announced, but a spokesperson for Community Pharmacy Wales (CPW) said they expected to see positive results for the sector when patient feedback started to come in. "We are aware that feedback on community pharmacies often reflects appreciation at the ease of access to healthcare professionals in pharmacies and that, as the assembly health committee concluded, ‘community pharmacies have a reach into communities across Wales that other services can find difficult to penetrate'," the spokesperson said. |
Lloydspharmacy adopts ‘risky' live feedback strategyAnd patient feedback could be valuable for pharmacists to use to evaluate the services and level of care they provide, said NPA head of external relations Stephen Fishwick. But he warned collecting feedback had to be "more than a tick-box exercise". "It's very frustrating to supply information to NHS management if you suspect that the information will go straight into a filing cabinet never again to see the light of day," he said.
The Welsh government said the patient feedback collected would be available publicly alongside national clinical audit and outcome reviews and would allow patients to compare services in their area with those on offer elsewhere.
Download: Achieving Excellence: The Quality Delivery Plan for the NHS in Wales 2012-16
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Is publicly available feedback a good way to drive quality in pharmacy services? Comment below or email us at [email protected] You can also find C+D on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook |
