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Service user satisfaction: an attempt to increase the impact of the NTA satisfaction survey
Andy Lloyd, Clinical Audit Facilitator, KCA and Neil Hunt, Director of Research, KCA & Honorary Senior Research Associate at the European Institute of Social Services, University of Kent

Abstract
For three years until 2007, service users contributed to a survey that has provided national satisfaction data. Responses have also contributed to the Healthcare Commission audit programme. Findings were only ever provided at the national and DAAT partnership level and a limitation to the enterprise has therefore been the absence of any provider-specific feedback. National response rates have also been consistently low; limiting the validity of the findings. Furthermore, the survey has no qualitative component. Although the ambitions are worthy, its impact is open to question. At present, the NTA has no further plans to repeat the survey.

During 2008 within KCA - a medium sized treatment provider - we sought to increase the survey's impact by replicating the exercise 'in house', generating our own data for analysis. We simultaneously trialled the use of £2 vouchers to increase the response rate; and added a simple qualitative component.

Our experience suggests that an in-house survey provides opportunities to increase service user participation - in survey design and data collection - and can enhance efforts to improve treatment quality by providing more fine-grained data. By taking ownership of the process, we increased proportionally the number of service users who provided data and developed a greater understanding of ways in which our services could be improved. Doing the survey ourselves also enabled the development of more sharply focused, agency specific, action plans for quality improvement.

The process nevertheless required considerable effort and resources and is best viewed as work-in-progress. Whether undertaking the process in-house leads more directly to service improvements - and whether the extra effort can be justified - remains to be confirmed. This should become clearer during a planned re-audit in 2009 that will use the 2008 data as a baseline.

In the interim, this paper will describe our experience to date and reflect on questions concerning
a) ways in which a variant of the NTA satisfaction survey might continue to contribute to local service improvements
b) how better value could be derived from similar national programmes in the future.

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Biographies

Andy Lloyd, Clinical Audit Facilitator, KCA (UK) - Faversham, Kent, England.

Neil Hunt, MSc (Social Research) is Director of Research for KCA, an Honorary Senior Research Associate at the European Institute for of Social Services, University of Kent and an Honorary Research Fellow with the Centre for Research on Drugs and Health Behaviour, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.