A nationwide survey of Irish hospitals has found that nine out of 10 hospital patients were satisfied with the overall quality of care they received and said they would go back to the same hospital again.
The National Patient Perception of the Quality of Healthcare Survey 2002, which was published today, was undertaken by the Irish Society for Quality and Safety in Healthcare (ISQSH.)
The survey examined key areas of in-patient care in 10 acute hospitals throughout the country. The results indicate a high level of patient satisfaction with their treatment in Irish hospitals but found room for improvement in the area of hospital/patient communication.
The survey found a need for improvement in hospital/patient communication as nearly three quarters of patients complain they are not given written information about hospital routines. Some seven out of 10 are also unaware of hospital complaint procedures.
According to the President of the ISQSH Ms Hilary Coates, the results of the survey indicated very high levels of satisfaction with care and service received.
"Interestingly", she said, "it also indicates that most of the areas in which patients feel improvements could be made are not resource intensive.
Provision of adequate and timely information appears to be a key area of potential improvement everyone in the provision of hospital services need to work on".
Other key findings included that a doctor sees 64 per cent of patients within one hour and 90 per cent within three hours of their arrival to Accident & Emergency.
Sixty four per cent of patients are admitted within three months of joining the waiting list, 12 per cent of patients wait over a year and some 18 per cent of patients on waiting list have admissions rescheduled at least once.