Across the NHS valuable patient experience data collected from free-text Friends and Family Test (FFT) has been under-utilised due to lack of human resource and no systematic way of extracting useful insights. To address this issue, a Health Foundation funded programme of work is aiming to scale up and spread the use of ‘natural language processing’ technology, in combination with quality improvement methodology, to transform patient feedback from the NHS Friends and Family Test into usable insights in real-time.
Guide to the Scale, Spread and Embed Project
The Imperial experience
In 2017, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (ICHT) completed an initial Health Foundation funded Innovating for Improvement project which used ‘natural language processing’ (NLP), a computer science technique that transforms unstructured text into a structured format, to analyse patient feedback and provide information to point-of-care staff and quality improvement (QI) leads.
Through cross-collaboration between Patient Experience, Patient Involvement, Clinical analytics (IT) and QI Teams, the project achieved several benefits for ICHT and their patients including improved efficiencies around patient feedback processing, and various improvements in patient experience.
In collaboration with the NHS Insights Team (NHS England & NHS Improvement), we then partnered with four selected trusts (Newcastle, Mid-Yorkshire, Great Ormond Street, and Oxleas). Experiences and outputs from this work has furthered refined the natural language processing code and understanding of resources needed to implement digital processing of patient experience data within the NHS.
What are we doing now?
Building on our previous experience, this three-year project (October 2020 - September 2023) aims to test and evaluate the usability of the NLP technology in combination with QI methodology across a range of NHS Trusts to improve patient experience.
We also aim to create a toolkit that can be used across the NHS to categorise free-text patient experience data to support sustainable quality improvement changes for patient benefit. This is timely as it aligns with recent NHS policy recommendations and fills a significant gap in the use of continuous patient feedback to monitor and deliver high quality care.
This project is funded by The Health Foundation and led by Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. Advancing Quality Alliance (Aqua) is the evaluation partner.
Project components
The project has two phases: Phase 1 (October 2020 - March 2022) where we refine our approach partnering with four trusts, and Phase 2 (April 2022 - September 2023) where we scale up the approach in twelve more trusts.
Phase 1 Trusts
For Phase 1 we are partnering with:
Stuart Clough
Associate Director of Continuous Improvement
Amy Marchant
Patient Experience Coordinator
Chedia Hoolickin
Quality Improvement Lead
Caroline Heason
Head of Patient Experience
Interested in joining the project?
We are currently looking to recruit a further 12 trusts to join Phase 2 (April 2022 - September 2023).
There are no upfront costs to taking part, but it will require resource commitment and input from key stakeholders within your trust, including:
Senior leadership buy-in and sponsorship
Staff time and commitment from Quality Improvement, Patient Experience, and IT/ Analytics teams
If you are looking to maximise the use of Friends and Family Test patient feedback data within your trust using the latest natural language processing technology, we want to hear from you.
Listen to Stuart Clough, Associate Director of Continuous Improvement at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, explain why the Trust have joined Phase 1 of the Feedback First project.
The project team
Implementation team
Erik Mayer (Principal Investigator, Imperial College London)
Mustafa Khanbhai (Project Lead, Imperial College London)
Sarindi Aryasinghe (Programme Manager, Imperial College London)
Rohini Subramaniam (Data Scientist, Imperial College London)
Bob Klaber (QI Lead, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trusts)
Stephanie Harrison-White (Patient Experience Lead, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trusts)
Dave Manton (Lay partner Lead)
Evaluation team
Ruth Yates (Associate Director, Aqua)
Eileen McDonach (Evaluation Lead, Aqua)
Simon Wickham (BI Analyst, Aqua)
Neil Wilkinson (Project Manager, Aqua)
Steering group
Clare Enston (Head of Insight and Feedback, NHS England and Improvement)
Lesley Goodburn (Senior Improvement Manager Patient Experience, NHS England and Improvement)
Miles Sibley (Co-founder, Patient Experience Library)
Anthony McQuillan (Co-founder Patient Experience Library)
James Munro (Founder and CEO, Care Opinion)
Ruth Evans (Founder, Patient Experience Network)
Kelsey Flott (Deputy Director of Patient Safety, NHSX)