How was your overall experience of our service?
The Friends and Family Test (FFT) is an important feedback tool that supports the fundamental principle that people who use NHS services should have the opportunity to provide feedback on their experience.
Launched in April 2013, the FFT question was gradually rolled out to all areas of NHS care giving patients the opportunity to leave feedback in all NHS services. The FFT asked people if they would recommend the service they used and offered a range of responses from ‘extremely likely’ to ‘extremely unlikely’. In April 2020, NHS England updated guidance with changes to the FFT question, to ask people to rate their overall experience of the service they received. When the results are combined with a supplementary follow-up question, the FFT provides a mechanism to highlight both good and poor patient experience. This kind of feedback is vital in transforming NHS services and supporting patient choice.
The feedback gathered through the FFT is being used in NHS organisations across the country to stimulate local improvement and empower staff to carry out the sorts of changes that make a real difference to patients and their care.
While the results will not be statistically comparable against other organisations because of the various data collection methods, FFT will continue to provide a broad measure of patient experience that can be used alongside other data to inform service improvement and patient choice.
Publishing results of the Friends and Family Test
The results of the FFT are published at monthly intervals on both NHS England and NHS.uk websites.
How does it work?
When you use one of our services you should be given the opportunity to complete a survey that includes the FFT question; either a paper version, or electronically by scanning a QR code with your mobile phone. Some of our services may contact you by telephone to conduct a survey or send you a survey link via email or text message. All our surveys are also available on your feedback page. A member of your family, a carer or a friend is welcome to complete a survey on your behalf.
The survey will ask you the question ‘Overall, how was your experience of our service’. There will be six answer options available, ranging from ‘very good’ to ‘very poor’ including a ‘don’t know’ response. It is important to us that we understand why you chose your answer, so there will be two follow-up free text boxes, ‘what was good’ and ‘what could be better’ where you can add your comments.
All our survey feedback is recorded anonymously, so you can be confident that your answers and comments will not be traced back to you.
How are the results used?
We gather the results and analyse them quickly to see if any action is required. We combine your feedback with that of other patients and create an overall FFT score which is published on the service pages of our website.
Can you raise an official concern or complaint by completing a survey?
No, as survey feedback is anonymous, if you raise a concern or complaint that requires a response or an investigation we won’t be able to contact you. If you wish to raise a concern/complaint about a service provided by Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust, you can contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS).
You can though give us feedback on a survey to tell us if we could have done something better and also to make suggestions on how we can improve our services.
How much is this costing the NHS?
At Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust we have an excellent system called IQVIA Connection to help us gather and report on patient feedback and a small, dedicated team to support our services to do this. The only additional cost has been printing some posters and leaflets, paid for from an existing budget for printing costs.