Raising doubt over the validity of hospital Family & Friends test

The family and friends satisfaction test, currently being piloted across the 46 acute trusts in the Midlands and East strategic health authority cluster and due to be rolled out nationally next month, could provide too low a response rate to be a fair reflection. The results are due to be used to rank hospitals nationwide.

Professor Peter Lynn, professor of survey methodology at ISER and a leading figure in the Royal Statistical Society has expressed concern about data collection methods and the lack of plans to standardise sample size, which would mean some trusts received responses from only 15 per cent of patients. Peter will be on Radio 4’s PM programme on Thursday 14 March to explain more about his concerns on the validity of the survey.

Professor Lynn told Health Service Journal:

“Such a low response rate would seriously call into question whether the results have any meaning at all.” and noted that comparing two hospitals with vastly different response rates would potentially result in a “misleading” comparison.

The Department of Health’s NHS Friends and Family Test Implementation Guidance said:

“The minimum response rate for organisations is expected to be around 15 per cent; for the majority, this figure could be much higher.”

Photo credit: martin_tod

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