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West London NHS Trust > About us > Quality and performance > Patient and carer feedback

Patient and carer feedback

Your feedback is really important to us. By listening and learning from what people tell us about their experiences of our services, we can improve the care we provide.

National patient survey

One of the ways we get feedback is through the national annual Community Mental Health Survey. This involves a random sample of people being invited to complete a questionnaire anonymously about their experience of using our services.

The Community Mental Health Survey is part of a wider programme of NHS surveys, which cover a range of topics including acute inpatient services, children’s inpatient and day-case services, A&E (emergency department) and maternity services. This survey collates the experiences of people receiving community mental health services plus primary care mental health services, community recovery teams and early intervention services, comparing them across mental health trusts nationally and with last year’s scores.

The National Service User Survey was undertaken for the Trust between February and June 2017, and the findings are based on 199 responses from service users in the community. This year’s results found 85% of service users felt they had been treated with dignity and respect by the Trust, and 81% felt the person they had seen listened to them carefully – both figures have shown an increase of 5% from 2016.

70% of people also said they knew who to contact out of hours if in a crisis – compared to 63% in 2016. Overall, 24% of service users rated their experience as ‘Good’ and 53% as ‘Very Good’. Only 6% rated their experience as ‘Poor’ – and this has reduced by 4% from last year.

However, only 43% of service users said they knew who was in charge of their care if the people they saw for care and services had changed in the last 12 months, but in 2016, more had felt better informed (48%).

As well as this, 73% said they felt treatments or therapies that did not involve medicine were explained in a way they could understand, but more service users understood these aspects in 2016 (85%). 65% also said they were involved as much as they wanted in deciding on treatments or therapies, whereas more had felt involved in 2016 (77%).

For those patients who aren’t randomly selected to take part in the national mental health patient survey there are a number of other ways you can give us your feedback.

Talk to a member of staff

If you feel able, it’s always good to give your feedback to a member of the team involved in your care and treatment. An important part of their job is to listen to what you have to say and to try and respond to any concerns you may have. If you don’t feel comfortable speaking to a member of staff directly related to you or your loved one’s care, you can call the PALS team (below).

Patient advice and liaison service (PALS)

Call our patient advice and liaison service (PALS) on 0800 064 3330 or email pals@westlondon.nhs.uk. If you have had a positive experience that you want to pass on, a problem that you need help with or a complaint that you want to make, then you contact our PALS service using their freephone number. PALS can’t offer counselling or clinical advice, but they can give support and advice.

Leave feedback online

One of the easiest and most convenient ways to tell us what you think is by using Care Opinion. This is the UK’s leading independent feedback platform for health services.

You can also make comments on the NHS Choices website.