Medibank hospital survey finds patients left in pain and without help getting to the toilet

PATIENTS have rated their experiences in public and private hospitals and the results will shock you.

Medibank patients survey finds hospital problems. Picture Getty Images.

EXCLUSIVE

AUSTRALIA’S public and private hospitals have been found wanting by a shocking survey that reveals patients are being left in pain and often get no help going to the toilet.

Half of all patients in public hospitals and one in three patients in private hospitals say they were left in pain, a national Medibank patient survey has found.

Fewer than half the patients in public hospitals got help with a bedpan or going to the toilet as soon as they wanted.

In private hospitals, four in 10 patients did not get help with the toilet when needed.

Medibank surveyed over 11,000 of its members who had a hospital admission between July 2016 and July 2017 asking them 31 questions about their care.

It wants to use the survey to drive improvements in patient care and give members the information they need to choose the best hospitals.

To date only aggregate data is available but within 12 months the scores will be provided to Medibank members on a hospital by hospital basis.

“These findings reveal a disturbing level of poor and even unsafe care and should not be tolerated by any hospital,” a spokesman for the Consumer’s Health Forum said.

“Now we need to see the release of individual hospitals’ performance figures to drive better patient care, along with more information on patient treatments outcomes,” he said.

Nurses slow to answer call buttons survey found. Picture istock

The survey found:

* Only half of all patients say they got help when the pushed the nurse call button;

* Medicine side effects were not properly explained by staff to two in three patients in both public and private hospitals;

* The purpose for taking each of their medications was understood by only 55 per cent of patients;

* Only half of all patients rated the area around their room as always quiet at night;

* 70 per cent say nurses listened carefully and explained things well;

* 88 per cent thought doctors treated them with courtesy and respect;

* Only 36 per cent strongly agreed staff took their preferences into account in deciding what their healthcare needs would be when they were discharged.

The survey looked at whether nurses and doctors treated them with respect, whether they got help going to the bathroom, how their pain and medications were managed and whether they were given help about how to care for themselves when they were discharged.

Medibank Gourp executive Andrew Wilson. Pics by Julian Andrews.

Medibank’s Group executive Andrew Wilson says the data will eventually be comparative however, he denies this will amount to a hospital league table.

The exercise is about educating the public on what they should expect from a hospital visit, he said.

“It’s not about the parking, the bread rolls and the cable TV, it’s about care,” he said.

The results will also be made available to GPs and specialists who are crucial in the decision making process about where to refer patients when they go to hospital.

The survey found private hospitals scored better on every measure.

Nurses in private hospitals were rated 10 points higher on listening and explaining skills in private hospitals but only five points higher in responding when the nurse call button was pushed.

Doctors in private hospitals were rated up to 13 points better in private hospitals than in public hospitals.