Is patient feedback relevant and/or necessary?

We all get some sort of feedback while going about our daily lives. It can be positive, critical, negative, unsolicited or at times asked for.

This also applies to institutions we interact with. We might give feedback whether asked for or not as pertaining to their services. Healthcare is big business and as a business, feedback from your service users in essential and should be incorporated into daily practice. Feedback is a great tool that can be used to evaluate how you are doing as an individual( useful for staff appraisals etc) or as a corporation ( improve or maintain high ranking, and increase revenue), and can be used to improve services or used to highlight strengths.

The National Institute for Health Research ( NIHR ) in the U.K has published an interesting piece of research looking at patient feedback and how it can be used to improve care. Please have a read below.:

https://content.nihr.ac.uk/nihrdc/themedreview-04327-PE/Patient-Feedback-WEB.pdf