Inpatient satisfaction with hospital care
Published
There is a new version of this page. View the latest version.
1. Main facts and figures
- inpatients who stayed in hospitals in England in July 2018 had an average satisfaction score of 76.2 out of 100
- patients from the Black Other ethnic group were the most satisfied of all ethnic groups, with an average satisfaction score of 80.4
- patients from the Pakistani ethnic group were the least satisfied of all ethnic groups, with an average score of 72.0
- in the 6 years covered by this data, White Irish patients were consistently among the most satisfied
- patients from the Pakistani ethnic groups were consistently among the least satisfied
Things you need to know
Data is based on hospital inpatients who stayed at least one night in hospital in England during the snapshot period (June to August each year). For example, the data for 2018 to 2019 is based on a survey of people who were inpatients in July 2018.
There are 27 trusts that did not provide revised data after printing errors in the data for 2017 to 2018. These trusts have been excluded for that year.
Results taken from a low number of responses are less reliable so you need to be cautious when looking at results from smaller ethnic groups. In particular, the number of respondents in the Gypsy and Irish Traveller group are very low and this means their scores can vary widely – from being amongst the highest in one year to amongst the lowest in another. Out of around 72,500 respondents in the most recent period, only around 4,000 (6%) weren’t from a White background.
What the data measures
This data measures inpatient experience of hospital care.
The data source is the adult inpatient survey, published by the Care Quality Commission. Twenty selected questions from the survey were used to calculate an average score for satisfaction on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 is the least and 100 is the most. The statistics represent the average score out of 100 for survey respondents in each ethnic group.
Patients are eligible for the survey if they:
- are 16 or over
- live in England
- have been discharged from an acute or specialist trust, with at least one overnight stay
Patients excluded from the survey include:
- patients whose treatment related to maternity
- patients admitted for the planned termination of a pregnancy
- day care patients
- private patients (non-NHS)
The ethnic categories used in this data
The standardised ethnic groups based on the 2011 Census were used.
2. By ethnicity
| Ethnicity | 2017-18 | 2018-19 |
|---|---|---|
| Average score | Average score | |
| All | 76.7 | 76.2 |
| Asian | ||
| Bangladeshi | 70.0 | 77.8 |
| Chinese | 78.4 | 76.6 |
| Indian | 75.4 | 74.7 |
| Pakistani | 73.8 | 72.0 |
| Asian other | 79.0 | 77.1 |
| Black | ||
| Black African | 77.3 | 78.8 |
| Black Caribbean | 74.0 | 75.3 |
| Black other | 73.5 | 80.4 |
| Mixed | ||
| Mixed White/Asian | 74.3 | 74.2 |
| Mixed White/Black African | 74.2 | 74.3 |
| Mixed White/Black Caribbean | 76.4 | 73.8 |
| Mixed other | 79.8 | 76.7 |
| White | ||
| White British | 77.4 | 76.4 |
| White Irish | 80.7 | 79.6 |
| White Gypsy/Traveller | 84.6 | 75.8 |
| White other | 78.9 | 76.3 |
| Other | ||
| Arab | 77.6 | 76.9 |
| Any other | 82.8 | 73.0 |
Download table data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV)
Summary of Inpatient satisfaction with hospital care By ethnicity Summary
The data shows that, among patients whose hospital stay was in July 2018:
- the most satisfied were from the Black other (80.4 out of 100), White Irish (79.6), Black African (78.8), and Bangladeshi (77.8) ethnic groups
- the least satisfied were from the Pakistani (72.0) and Mixed White and Black Caribbean (73.8) ethnic groups
3. By ethnicity over time
| Ethnicity | 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average score | Average score | Average score | Average score | Average score | Average score | |
| All | 76.9 | 76.6 | 77.3 | 76.7 | 76.7 | 76.2 |
| Asian | ||||||
| Bangladeshi | 70.8 | 72.7 | 73.2 | 72.0 | 70.0 | 77.8 |
| Chinese | 70.8 | 78.5 | 73.7 | 73.4 | 78.4 | 76.6 |
| Indian | 73.9 | 74.0 | 75.9 | 74.8 | 75.4 | 74.7 |
| Pakistani | 72.3 | 72.0 | 73.5 | 74.4 | 73.8 | 72.0 |
| Asian other | 78.7 | 77.0 | 80.0 | 77.4 | 79.0 | 77.1 |
| Black | ||||||
| Black African | 76.5 | 75.5 | 77.8 | 76.3 | 77.3 | 78.8 |
| Black Caribbean | 74.6 | 77.0 | 76.1 | 75.0 | 74.0 | 75.3 |
| Black other | 72.8 | 77.1 | 71.1 | 78.6 | 73.5 | 80.4 |
| Mixed | ||||||
| Mixed White/Asian | 75.5 | 75.5 | 75.1 | 74.3 | 74.3 | 74.2 |
| Mixed White/Black African | 68.6 | 78.1 | 71.6 | 78.6 | 74.2 | 74.3 |
| Mixed White/Black Caribbean | 75.5 | 82.1 | 79.6 | 74.5 | 76.4 | 73.8 |
| Mixed other | 80.7 | 70.1 | 79.3 | 80.6 | 79.8 | 76.7 |
| White | ||||||
| White British | 77.1 | 76.8 | 77.6 | 76.9 | 77.4 | 76.4 |
| White Irish | 78.9 | 79.7 | 80.3 | 81.1 | 80.7 | 79.6 |
| White Gypsy/Traveller | 59.0 | withheld because a small sample size makes it unreliable | 75.1 | 81.9 | 84.6 | 75.8 |
| White other | 77.8 | 75.4 | 77.3 | 77.8 | 78.9 | 76.3 |
| Other | ||||||
| Arab | 71.6 | 72.5 | 76.6 | 77.4 | 77.6 | 76.9 |
| Any other | 80.4 | 70.9 | 78.4 | 78.0 | 82.8 | 73.0 |
Download table data for ‘By ethnicity over time’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity over time’ (CSV)
Summary of Inpatient satisfaction with hospital care By ethnicity over time Summary
The data shows that:
- patients from the Irish ethnic group were consistently among the most satisfied with their hospital care
- patients from the Pakistani ethnic groups were consistently among the least satisfied
4. Methodology
The Care Quality Commission adult inpatient survey is the major survey of inpatient experience of hospital services in England.
Data was collected between August 2018 and January 2019 from patients who stayed in hospital during July 2018. The 2018 survey included 144 NHS acute and NHS foundation trusts in England.
Patients successfully completed 76,668 questionnaires, a response rate of 45%. Of these, the ethnicity was known for 72,417 people.
Some trusts have a higher response rate than others, and therefore a greater influence over the average. To avoid this, weights are applied to the data so each trust has an equal influence over the average, regardless of differences in response rates between trusts.
It is important to be able to compare NHS trusts which treat patients with different characteristics. There may be differences between survey years in the average age, gender and route of admission profiles. To account for these, another weight is applied to the data in order to produce standardised results within any year.
Trusts were asked to include as their sample the final 1,250 patients to be discharged by 31 July. A small number of trusts with smaller numbers of patients (such as specialist trusts) had to include patients from earlier months. In previous years trusts could choose whether to select patients discharged in either June, July or August. This is not thought to have disrupted the time series because discharges still occurred at roughly the same time of year, and patient experience is not expected to be very different.
Certain groups of patients were excluded from the survey before trusts selected their samples, including:
- patients who had died
- children or young people under 16 years old in July 2018
- women using obstetrics or maternity services, including those who had a spontaneous miscarriage
- patients admitted for planned termination of pregnancy
- psychiatry patients (patients who received treatment for a mental health condition)
- day case patients (patients who arrived at and left hospital on the same day)
- private patients (non-NHS)
- NHS patients treated at private hospitals
- any patients who were known to be inpatients at the time samples were drawn
- patients without a UK postal address
- patients who opted out of having their details used for anything except clinical care
For further information, read the Adult inpatient survey 2018 and statistical release (PDF, 1MB, 74 pages) (PDF opens in a new window or tab).
Suppression rules and disclosure control
Data is suppressed if fewer than 30 people answered the relevant questions in a particular group. This is to protect the confidentiality of respondents.
Rounding
Scores are rounded to 1 decimal place.
Related publications
The release of the indicator file is accompanied by a statistical commentary that can be found in the ‘Resources’ section on this page (PDF, 1MB, 74 pages) (PDF opens in a new window or tab).
Further technical information
Indicator specification and indicator quality statement.
CQC technical document 2018 (PDF, 509KB, 29 pages) (PDF opens in a new window or tab).
5. Data sources
Source
4b Patient experience of hospital care
Type of data
Survey data
Type of statistic
National Statistics
Publisher
NHS Digital
Note on corrections or updates
There were printing errors in the original figures for 2017 to 2018. This data has now been revised and is comparable with all other years in the time series. There are 27 trusts that did not provide revised data. These have been excluded from the calculation of the national average for that year.
Publication frequency
Yearly
Purpose of data source
The Care Quality Commission adult inpatient survey helps healthcare providers understand what a stay in hospital is like for patients. It can be used to encourage improvements both nationally and locally, and to measure and compare the performance of individual NHS trusts.
6. Download the data
This file contains the following: ethnicity, year, value. There is no unweighted sample size data. As a result of issues with the 2017 to 2018 survey, the previously published file made reference to the use of 19 questions for 2017 to 2018, with a comparable version published for 2016 to 2017 data also. This new file contains revised data for 2017 to 2018, and all years are now based on 20 questions and are comparable across years.