Patient surveys identify needs

doi:10.1136/bmj.320.7230.314

BMJ 2000;320:314 ( 29 January )

Letters

Patient surveys identify needs

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ Cleary is right to exhort us to undertake patient surveys to improve the quality of care provided.¹ Surveys areparticularly important with regard to ethnic minority populationssince, because of different languages, they may find it difficultto communicate their experiences or may be generally less forthcomingthanothers.

We undertook surveys of the provision of hospital services in Middlesbrough to ascertain the needs of Asian people. As a result,appropriate services were made available and satisfaction levelswere improved.² A further survey highlighted the need for continuousmonitoring, since some aspects $---$ for example, provision of interpretingservices $---$ had not been fully implemented.³

The second survey was extended to ascertain views on and use of a range of clinical services, including family planning, cervicalsmear and breast examination tests, and other settings includingprimary care. ³ ⁴ An interesting finding was the high levelof satisfaction with many aspects of . . . [Full text of this article]