Background

On 1 March 2007, the then Minister for Health and Community Care announced the development of a programme aimed at obtaining information on patients' experiences of the services they receive.

During 2007, the Scottish Government set up a Coordination Centre to support NHSScotland to develop the Programme.

Once the Coordination Centre was in place, Better Together: Scotland's Patient Experience Programme was formally launched on 4 February 2008 by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, Nicola Sturgeon, at Stirling Royal Infirmary in Forth Valley NHS Board.

The Programme supports many of the themes in Better Health, Better Care, most particularly that of 'mutuality' which is the concept of patients and NHS staff being co-owners of NHSScotland.

The Programme has been developed over 2008 and 2009. It will run on an annual basis across Scotland. It is not intended that the programme will end, instead the programme will become part of the annual cycle of work undertaken by NHS Boards.

Developing ways to collect patient experiences in three areas

Better Together is currently developing ways to collect experiences from people who have been treated as inpatients within NHSScotland and people who use GP services.

Information has been gathered from inpatients and people registered with a GP (during 2009/2010).

Who developed this work?

The Better Together Coordination Centre, in partnership with a range of representatives from NHS Boards, other organisations and patient groups, is developing how we collect patient experiences through a group called Measuring Experience.

All the work which is developed has been piloted and the inpatient survey has been ethically approved through the National Research Ethics Service (NRES). 

Who gathers these experiences?

Each NHS Board is responsible for collecting its patients' experiences. NHS Boards have had the help of an Approved Contractor to send out questionnaires to patients. NHS Boards will also organise focus groups and other forms of feedback gathering.

Will patients have to participate?

Patients will be asked to participate and all involvement in the programme will be entirely voluntary. The information provided by individual patients will be confidential and patients will not be identifiable in the results given back to the NHS Boards.

What will happen to the results?

Once work to collect patients' experiences is complete, results will be published on this website. NHS Boards and GP surgeries will then implement improvement work and share best practice when they have analysed their own information and agreed local improvement plans.

More about us

• Watch the video about the launch of the Better Together patient experience programme
• Download the information leaflet about the Better Together
• Be kept up to date about Better Together by viewing our latest Newsletter