Published 17 March 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b1030
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b1030

Head to Head

Will doctor rating sites improve standards of care? Yes

¹ Summertown Pavilion, Oxford OX2 7LG

The UK government has signalled its support for rating sites with the decision to set up its own through the NHS Choices website. Neil Bacon believes they provide essential feedback for doctors, but Margaret McCartney (doi:10.1136/bmj.b1033) is concerned that the potential harms are still unclear

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

Patient experience is a key component of the measurement of the quality of care we deliver.¹ Thus no individuals or organisations can know they are delivering high quality care without a full awareness and understanding of the experience of their patients—it would be like caring for a patient with a kidney transplant without knowing the creatinine concentration.

Unfortunately, doctors are known to be poor judges of their patients’ satisfaction and experience,^{2 3 4} and at an organisational level it is probably even worse. Acute trusts score a mean of just 0.68 out of 10 for how much they ask for the views of their patients.⁵ In effect, most doctors and NHS healthcare organisations are "flying blind" with respect to the experience of their patients—hardly a patient centric, or professional, way to deliver health care. Worse than that, it is not an effective or efficient way to care: key clinical measures and outcomes . . . [Full text of this article]

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This article has been cited by other articles:

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Rapid Responses:

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rating sites as an educational tool

chris harnden
bmj.com, 19 Mar 2009 [Full text]

Nonsense

Martin J Toal
bmj.com, 23 Mar 2009 [Full text]

Feedback is good: iwantgreatcare.org is not

Dominic H R Faux
bmj.com, 22 Mar 2009 [Full text]

Web-based patient feedback is coming

Paul K Hodgkin
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Simple problems, require simple solutions.

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Some doctors will avoid high-risk patients

Nicos Kessaris
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It's better than no ratings

C Fezziwig
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Basis for assessment

Joan McClusky
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Patient feedback is important but

Umesh Prabhu
bmj.com, 3 Apr 2009 [Full text]

Are we ready?

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