Experience: A&E

  • NICE indicator
  • IND291
  • Published:
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Indicator

Patient experience of A&E services.

Indicator type

Network / system level indicator. The indicator would be appropriate to understand and report on the performance of networks or systems of providers.

This document does not represent formal NICE guidance. For a full list of NICE indicators, see our menu of indicators.

To find out how to use indicators and how we develop them, see our NICE indicator process guide.

Rationale

Patients' experience of the care and service they receive from healthcare services is recognised internationally as a key measure of healthcare quality. This is an overarching indicator, which focuses on measuring people's experience of A&E services. The questions used to assess quality of care are consistent with NICE's guideline on patient experience in adult NHS services and NICE's quality standard on patient experience.

Specification

Numerator and denominator: not applicable. This is a composite indicator based on the weighted average score of questions from the Care Quality Commission's urgent and emergency care survey.

Calculation: composite indicator based on the weighted average score (between 0 and 100) to 5 patient experience questions. The survey is weighted by age and gender.

The questions are:

  • Question 14: While you were in the A&E department, did a doctor or nurse explain your condition and treatment in a way you could understand?

  • Question 17: Did you have confidence and trust in the doctors and nurses examining and treating you?

  • Question 26: Were you involved as much as you wanted to be in decisions about your care and treatment?

  • Question 30: Do you think the hospital staff did everything they could to help control your pain?

  • Question 46: Overall, did you feel you were treated with respect and dignity while you were in the A&E department? (Currently worded 'while you were in A&E?')

Exclusions: survey excludes:

  • under 16s

  • anyone who had a planned attendance at an outpatient clinic run within A&E (such as a fracture clinic)

  • patients who were admitted to hospital via medical or surgical admissions units and therefore have not visited A&E or an urgent care centre

  • patients attending primarily to obtain contraception (for example, the morning after pill)

  • patients who suffered a miscarriage or another form of abortive pregnancy outcome while at the hospital

  • patients with a concealed pregnancy.

Data source: Urgent and emergency care survey.

Expected population size: An estimated population size cannot be calculated because there is no denominator for this indicator.

The number of respondents to the survey has been consistently more than 41,000 nationally; however, in 2022, there were only around 29,000 respondents.

ISBN: 978-1-4731-6865-7