{"id":221171,"date":"2025-06-28T11:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T11:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/221171\/"},"modified":"2025-06-28T11:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T11:12:10","slug":"nhs-hospital-funding-in-england-could-be-tied-to-patient-satisfaction-health-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/221171\/","title":{"rendered":"NHS hospital funding in England could be tied to patient satisfaction | Health policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Money for hospitals could be linked to patient ratings, it has been reported, as one of the health bosses tasked with implementing the government\u2019s 10-year plan for the NHS in England<\/a> warns it faces an existential threat unless it reconnects with the public.<\/p>\n

The measure, under which services could lose a proportion of their funding if patients were unhappy, is reportedly part of a package due to be announced by the prime minister next week.<\/p>\n

But clinicians have expressed concern that the proposal risks performing surgery on the NHS<\/a> with a blunt instrument, rather than the scalpel required.<\/p>\n

According to the Times, patients would be contacted shortly after their treatment. If they reported themselves dissatisfied, about 10% of \u201cstandard payment rates\u201d would be diverted to a local \u201cimprovement fund\u201d.<\/p>\n

The report suggested it could first be implemented in areas of the service with a poor record of care. Maternity services are said to be among the first to test the system after the health secretary, Wes Streeting, launched a national investigation into NHS maternity services<\/a> in England, saying \u201cmaternity units are failing, hospitals are failing, trusts are failing, regulators are failing\u201d.<\/p>\n

But Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: \u201cNone of our members have raised this idea with us as a way of improving care and, to our knowledge, no other healthcare system internationally adopts this model currently.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatient experience is determined by far more than their individual interaction with the clinician and so, unless this is very carefully designed and evaluated, there is a risk that providers could be penalised for more systemic issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

It came as the new head of the NHS in England said the service had \u201cbuilt mechanisms to keep the public away\u201d. Sir Jim Mackey told the Telegraph: \u201cWe\u2019ve made it really hard, and we\u2019ve probably all been on the end of it. You\u2019ve got a relative in hospital, so you\u2019re ringing a number on a ward that no one ever answers. The ward clerk only works nine to five, or they\u2019re busy doing other stuff; the GP practice scrambles every morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like we\u2019ve built mechanisms to keep the public away because it\u2019s an inconvenience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mackey warned that the disconnect between NHS services and the public could result in the loss of the public health service altogether. \u201cThe big worry is: if we don\u2019t grab that, and we don\u2019t deal with it with pace, we\u2019ll lose the population. If we lose the population, we\u2019ve lost the NHS. For me, it\u2019s straightforward: The two things are completely dependent on each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Streeting said on Wednesday that the government\u2019s 10-year plan would also aim to \u201caddress one of the starkest health inequalities<\/a>\u201d, which he claims is the unequal access to information and choice when it comes to healthcare.<\/p>\n

Mackey said: \u201cWe\u2019ve got to somehow reorientate it; think about how do we find people who need us, how do we stop thinking: \u2018It\u2019s going to be a pain in the arse if you turn up because I\u2019m quite busy\u2019 and instead think about how do we find out what you need and get it sorted.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Money for hospitals could be linked to patient ratings, it has been reported, as one of the health…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-221171","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}