Patient evaluations of physician communication are widely used, but we know little about how these relate to professionally agreed norms of communication quality. We report an investigation into the association between patient assessments of communication quality and an observer-rated measure of communication competence. Consent was obtained to video record consultations with Family Practitioners in England, following which patients rated the physician's communication skills. A sample of consultation videos was subsequently evaluated by trained clinical raters using an instrument derived from the Calgary-Cambridge guide to the medical interview. Consultations scored highly for communication by clinical raters were also scored highly by patients. However, when clinical raters judged communication to be of lower quality, patient scores ranged from "poor" to "very good." Some patients may be inhibited from rating poor communication negatively. Patient evaluations can be useful for measuring relative performance of physicians' communication skills, but absolute scores should be interpreted with caution.

Objective: to examine concordance between responses to patient experience survey items evaluating doctors' interpersonal skills, and subsequent patient interview accounts of their experiences of care. Design: Mixed methods study integrating data from patient questionnaires completed immediately after a video-recorded face-to-face consultation with a general practitioner (GP) and subsequent interviews with the same patients which included playback of the recording. Setting: 12 general practices in rural, urban and inner city locations in six areas in England. Participants: 50 patients (66% female, aged 19-96 years) consulting face-to-face with 32 participating GPs. Main outcome measures: Positive responses to interpersonal skills items in a postconsultation questionnaire ('good' and 'very good') were compared with experiences reported during subsequent video elicitation interview (categorised as positive, negative or neutral by independent clinical raters) when reviewing that aspect of care. Results: We extracted 230 textual statements from 50 interview transcripts which related to the evaluation of GPs' interpersonal skills. Raters classified 70.9% (n=163) of these statements as positive, 19.6% (n=45) neutral and 9.6% (n=22) negative. Comments made by individual patients during interviews did not always express the same sentiment as their responses to the questionnaire. Where questionnaire responses indicated that interpersonal skills were 'very good', 84.6% of interview statements concerning that item were classified as positive. However, where patients rated interpersonal skills as 'good', only 41.9% of interview statements were classified as positive, and 18.9% as negative. Conclusions: Positive responses on patient experience questionnaires can mask important negative experiences which patients describe in subsequent interviews. The interpretation of absolute patient experience scores in feedback and public reporting should be done with caution, and clinicians should not be complacent following receipt of 'good' feedback. Relative scores are more easily interpretable when used to compare the performance of providers.

BACKGROUND: There is growing interest in real-time feedback (RTF), which involves collecting and summarizing information about patient experience at the point of care with the aim of informing service improvement. OBJECTIVE: to investigate the feasibility and acceptability of RTF in UK general practice. DESIGN: Exploratory randomized trial. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: Ten general practices in south-west England and Cambridgeshire. All patients attending surgeries were eligible to provide RTF. INTERVENTION: Touch screens were installed in waiting areas for 12 weeks with practice staff responsible for encouraging patients to provide RTF. All practices received fortnightly feedback summaries. Four teams attended a facilitated reflection session. OUTCOMES: RTF 'response rates' among consulting patients were estimated, and the representativeness of touch screen users were assessed. The frequency of staff-patient interactions about RTF (direct observation) and patient views of RTF (exit survey) were summarized. Associated costs were collated. RESULTS: About 2.5% consulting patients provided RTF (range 0.7-8.0% across practices), representing a mean of 194 responses per practice. Patients aged above 65 were under-represented among touch screen users. Receptionists rarely encouraged RTF but, when this did occur, 60% patients participated. Patients were largely positive about RTF but identified some barriers. Costs per practice for the twelve-week period ranged from £1125 (unfacilitated team-level feedback) to £1887 (facilitated team ± practitioner-level feedback). The main cost was the provision of touch screens. CONCLUSIONS: Response rates for RTF were lower than those of other survey modes, although the numbers of patients providing feedback to each practice were comparable to those achieved in the English national GP patient survey. More patients might engage with RTF if the opportunity were consistently highlighted to them.

BACKGROUND: Around 17% of people eligible for UK cardiac rehabilitation programmes following an acute coronary syndrome report moderate or severe depressive symptoms. While maximising psychological health is a core goal of cardiac rehabilitation, psychological care can be fragmented and patchy. This study tests the feasibility and acceptability of embedding enhanced psychological care, composed of two management strategies of proven effectiveness in other settings (nurse-led mental health care coordination and behavioural activation), within the cardiac rehabilitation care pathway. METHODS/DESIGN: This study tests the uncertainties associated with a large-scale evaluation by conducting an external pilot trial with a nested qualitative study. We aim to recruit and randomise eight comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation teams (clusters) to intervention (embedding enhanced psychological care into routine cardiac rehabilitation programmes) or control (routine cardiac rehabilitation programmes alone) arms. Up to 64 patients (eight per team) identified with depressive symptoms upon initial assessment by the cardiac rehabilitation team will be recruited, and study measures will be administered at baseline (before starting rehabilitation) and at 5 months and 8 months post baseline. Outcomes include depressive symptoms, cardiac mortality and morbidity, anxiety, health-related quality of life and service resource use. Trial data on cardiac team and patient recruitment, and the retention and flow of patients through treatment will be used to assess intervention feasibility and acceptability. Qualitative interviews will be undertaken to explore trial participants' and cardiac rehabilitation nurses' views and experiences of the trial methods and intervention, and to identify reasons why patients declined to take part in the trial. Outcome data will inform a sample size calculation for a definitive trial. DISCUSSION: the pilot trial and qualitative study will inform the design of a fully powered cluster randomised controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the provision of enhanced psychological care within cardiac rehabilitation programmes. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN34701576 (Registered 29 May 2014).

BACKGROUND: in recent years, hospitals have made use of new technologies, such as real-time feedback, to collect patient experience information. This approach is currently rarely used in primary care settings, but may provide practices with a useful tool that enables them to take prompt, focused action to improve their services. AIM: to identify the factors inhibiting and enabling the implementation of real-time feedback in general practices. DESIGN AND SETTING: Qualitative study embedded within an exploratory trial (July 2014 to February 2015) of a real-time feedback intervention targeting patient experience in general practices in south-west England and Cambridgeshire. METHOD: Semi-structured interviews (n = 22) and focus groups (n = 4, total of 28 attendees) with practice staff were audiorecorded, transcribed, and analysed thematically, using a framework based on constructs from normalisation process theory. RESULTS: Staff engagement with real-time feedback varied considerably, and staff made sense of real-time feedback by comparing it with more familiar feedback modalities. Effective within-team communication was associated with positive attitudes towards real-time feedback. Timing of requests for feedback was important in relation to patient engagement. Real-time feedback may offer potential as a means of informing practice development, perhaps as a component of a wider programme of capturing and responding to patients' comments. CONCLUSION: Successful implementation of real-time feedback requires effective communication across the practice team to engender thorough engagement. Feedback processes should be carefully introduced to fit with existing patient and practice routines. Future studies should consider making real-time feedback content relevant to specific practice needs, and support participation by all patient groups.

© 2016, the Author(s). Purpose: the validity and reliability of various items on the GP Patient Survey (GPPS) survey have been reported, however stability of patient responses over time has not been tested. The purpose of this study was to determine the test–retest reliability of the core items from the GPPS. Methods: Patients who had recently consulted participating GPs in five general practices across the South West England were sent a postal questionnaire comprising of 54 items concerning their experience of their consultation and the care they received from the GP practice. Patients returning the questionnaire within 3 weeks of mail-out were sent a second identical (retest) questionnaire. Stability of responses was assessed by raw agreement rates and Cohen’s kappa (for categorical response items) and intraclass correlation coefficients and means (for ordinal response items). Results: 348 of 597 Patients returned a retest questionnaire (58.3 % response rate). In comparison to the test phase, patients responding to the retest phase were older and more likely to have white British ethnicity. Raw agreement rates for the 33 categorical items ranged from 66 to 100 % (mean 88 %) while the kappa coefficients ranged from 0.00 to 1.00 (mean 0.53). Intraclass correlation coefficients for the 21 ordinal items averaged 0.67 (range 0.44–0.77). Conclusions: Formal testing of items from the national GP patient survey examining patient experience in primary care highlighted their acceptable temporal stability several weeks following a GP consultation.

BACKGROUND: Despite widespread adoption of patient feedback surveys in international health-care systems, including the English NHS, evidence of a demonstrable impact of surveys on service improvement is sparse. OBJECTIVE: to explore the views of primary care practice staff regarding the utility of patient experience surveys. DESIGN: Qualitative focus groups. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Staff from 14 English general practices. RESULTS: Whilst participants engaged with feedback from patient experience surveys, they routinely questioned its validity and reliability. Participants identified surveys as having a number of useful functions: for patients, as a potentially therapeutic way of getting their voice heard; for practice staff, as a way of identifying areas of improvement; and for GPs, as a source of evidence for professional development and appraisal. Areas of potential change stimulated by survey feedback included redesigning front-line services, managing patient expectations and managing the performance of GPs. Despite this, practice staff struggled to identify and action changes based on survey feedback alone. DISCUSSION: Whilst surveys may be used to endorse existing high-quality service delivery, their use in informing changes in service delivery is more challenging for practice staff. Drawing on the Utility Index framework, we identified concerns relating to reliability and validity, cost and feasibility acceptability and educational impact, which combine to limit the utility of patient survey feedback. CONCLUSIONS: Feedback from patient experience surveys has great potential. However, without a specific and renewed focus on how to translate feedback into action, this potential will remain incompletely realized.

BACKGROUND: Open-ended questions eliciting free-text comments have been widely adopted in surveys of patient experience. Analysis of free text comments can provide deeper or new insight, identify areas for action, and initiate further investigation. Also, they may be a promising way to progress from documentation of patient experience to achieving quality improvement. The usual methods of analyzing free-text comments are known to be time and resource intensive. To efficiently deal with a large amount of free-text, new methods of rapidly summarizing and characterizing the text are being explored. OBJECTIVE: the aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of using freely available Web-based text processing tools (text clouds, distinctive word extraction, key words in context) for extracting useful information from large amounts of free-text commentary about patient experience, as an alternative to more resource intensive analytic methods. METHODS: We collected free-text responses to a broad, open-ended question on patients' experience of primary care in a cross-sectional postal survey of patients recently consulting doctors in 25 English general practices. We encoded the responses to text files which were then uploaded to three Web-based textual processing tools. The tools we used were two text cloud creators: TagCrowd for unigrams, and Many Eyes for bigrams; and Voyant Tools, a Web-based reading tool that can extract distinctive words and perform Keyword in Context (KWIC) analysis. The association of patients' experience scores with the occurrence of certain words was tested with logistic regression analysis. KWIC analysis was also performed to gain insight into the use of a significant word. RESULTS: in total, 3426 free-text responses were received from 7721 patients (comment rate: 44.4%). The five most frequent words in the patients' comments were "doctor", "appointment", "surgery", "practice", and "time". The three most frequent two-word combinations were "reception staff", "excellent service", and "two weeks". The regression analysis showed that the occurrence of the word "excellent" in the comments was significantly associated with a better patient experience (OR=1.96, 95%CI=1.63-2.34), while "rude" was significantly associated with a worse experience (OR=0.53, 95%CI=0.46-0.60). The KWIC results revealed that 49 of the 78 (63%) occurrences of the word "rude" in the comments were related to receptionists and 17(22%) were related to doctors. CONCLUSIONS: Web-based text processing tools can extract useful information from free-text comments and the output may serve as a springboard for further investigation. Text clouds, distinctive words extraction and KWIC analysis show promise in quick evaluation of unstructured patient feedback. The results are easily understandable, but may require further probing such as KWIC analysis to establish the context. Future research should explore whether more sophisticated methods of textual analysis (eg, sentiment analysis, natural language processing) could add additional levels of understanding.

OBJECTIVES: to determine the extent to which practice level scores mask variation in individual performance between doctors within a practice. DESIGN: Analysis of postal survey of patients' experience of face-to-face consultations with individual general practitioners in a stratified quota sample of primary care practices. SETTING: Twenty five English general practices, selected to include a range of practice scores on doctor-patient communication items in the English national GP Patient Survey. PARTICIPANTS: 7721 of 15,172 patients (response rate 50.9%) who consulted with 105 general practitioners in 25 practices between October 2011 and June 2013. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Score on doctor-patient communication items from post-consultation surveys of patients for each participating general practitioner. The amount of variance in each of six outcomes that was attributable to the practices, to the doctors, and to the patients and other residual sources of variation was calculated using hierarchical linear models. RESULTS: After control for differences in patients' age, sex, ethnicity, and health status, the proportion of variance in communication scores that was due to differences between doctors (6.4%) was considerably more than that due to practices (1.8%). The findings also suggest that higher performing practices usually contain only higher performing doctors. However, lower performing practices may contain doctors with a wide range of communication scores. CONCLUSIONS: Aggregating patients' ratings of doctors' communication skills at practice level can mask considerable variation in the performance of individual doctors, particularly in lower performing practices. Practice level surveys may be better used to "screen" for concerns about performance that require an individual level survey. Higher scoring practices are unlikely to include lower scoring doctors. However, lower scoring practices require further investigation at the level of the individual doctor to distinguish higher and lower scoring general practitioners.

Background Simulated patient, or so-called 'mystery-shopper', studies are a controversial, but potentially useful, approach to take when conducting health services research. Aim to investigate the construct validity of survey questions relating to access to primary care included in the English GP Patient Survey. Design and setting Observational study in 41 general practices in rural, urban, and inner-city settings in the UK. Method Between May 2010 and March 2011, researchers telephoned practices at monthly intervals, simulating patients requesting routine, but prompt, appointments. Seven measures of access and appointment availability, measured from the mystery-shopper contacts, were related to seven measures of practice performance from the GP Patient Survey. Results Practices with lower access scores in the GP Patient Survey had poorer access and appointment availability for five out of seven items measured directly, when compared with practices that had higher scores. Scores on items from the national survey that related to appointment availability were significantly associated with direct measures of appointment availability. Patient-satisfaction levels and the likelihood that patients would recommend their practice were related to the availability of appointments. Patients' reports of ease of telephone access in the national survey were unrelated to three out of four measures of practice call handling, but were related to the time taken to resolve an appointment request, suggesting responders' possible confusion in answering this question. Conclusion Items relating to the accessibility of care in a the English GP patient survey have construct validity. Patients' satisfaction with their practice is not related to practice call handling, but is related to appointment availability. © British Journal of General Practice.

Background the UK government has encouraged NHS services to obtain patient feedback to support the further development of patient-centred care. In 2009, the English GP Patient Survey included a sample of 5.5 million, but little is known about its potential utility in informing developments aimed at improving the quality of patients' experiences of primary care. Aim to investigate primary care providers' response to feedback on patient experience from a national survey. Design and setting Qualitative interview study in 10 general practices from four primary care trusts in England. Method Semi-structured interviews were conducted with GPs, practice nurses, and practice managers (n = 37). Transcripts were analysed thematically. Results Although some participants reported making changes to their practice in response to the survey data, many expressed doubts about the credibility of the results. Key issues included: concerns about practical aspects of the survey, such as the response rate and representativeness of the sample; the view that it gave insufficient detail to facilitate change and failed to address some salient issues; and unease about the influence of political influences underpinning its introduction and use. Conclusion Although, in general, primary care professionals have positive attitudes towards patient feedback, this study suggests a mismatch between the conventional demonstration of the objectivity of a questionnaire survey and the attitudes and experiences of those receiving the data. This is likely to prevent doctors from engaging constructively with the survey. These concerns may well militate against the potential of the survey to act as a simple means of capturing, and effectively using, feedback from patients. © British Journal of General Practice.

This literature review focuses on what matters to young adults when they access primary care services in the United Kingdom. Patients' access to and experience of primary care services differs across age groups. Existing research has largely focused on the needs and experiences of children, adolescents, and adults. There is some evidence to suggest the views of young adults (aged 18-25 years) that may differ from the views of other age groups, and research has not previously reported specifically on the views of this group of the population. The literature was reviewed to identify the views and priorities of young UK adults regarding primary healthcare provision, and furthermore, to identify those related topics that would benefit from further research. Relevant academic publications and grey literature published from 2000 onwards was reviewed and synthesised. We identified and reported emerging themes that were of importance to young adults in respect of the UK primary care provision. A total of 19 papers met our inclusion criteria. Young adults access primary care services less frequently than other age groups; this may be because of their experience of primary care throughout childhood and adolescence. Five aspects of primary care provision emerged as being of importance to young adults--the accessibility and availability of services, the confidentiality of health-related information, issues relating to communication with healthcare professionals, continuity of care, and behaviours and attitudes expressed towards young adults by healthcare professionals. There is a lack of focus of current research on the expectations, needs, and primary healthcare experiences of young adults. Young adults may hold views that are distinct from other age groups. Further research is needed to better understand the needs of a young adult population as their needs may impact the future use of services.

BACKGROUND: Young adulthood is an important transitional period during which there is a higher risk of individuals engaging in behaviours which could have a lasting impact on their health. Research has shown that young adults are the lowest responders to surveys about healthcare experiences and are also the least satisfied with the care they receive. However, the factors contributing to this reduced satisfaction are not clear. The focus of our research was to explore the needs and experiences of young adults around healthcare services with an aim of finding out possible reasons for lower satisfaction. METHODS: Twenty young adults were interviewed at GP surgeries and at a local young adult advice agency, exploring their experiences and use of primary care services. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: the use of primary care services varied amongst the young adult interviewees. Many interviewees reported positive experiences; those who did not linked their negative experiences to difficulties in negotiating their care with the health care system, and reported issues with trust, and communication difficulties. Most of the interviewees were unaware of the use of patient surveys to inform healthcare planning and delivery and were not inclined to take part, mainly because of the length of surveys and lack of interest in the topic area. CONCLUSIONS: in order to effectively address the health needs of young adults, young adults need to be educated about their rights as patients, and how to most efficiently use primary care services. GPs should be alert to effective means of approaching and handling the healthcare needs of young adults. A flexible, varied approach is needed to gathering high quality data from this group in order to provide services with information on the changes necessary for making primary care services more accessible for young adults.

Background
Young adulthood is an important transitional period during which there is a higher risk of individuals engaging in behaviours which could have a lasting impact on their health. Research has shown that young adults are the lowest responders to surveys about healthcare experiences and are also the least satisfied with the care they receive. However, the factors contributing to this reduced satisfaction are not clear. The focus of our research was to explore the needs and experiences of young adults around healthcare services with an aim of finding out possible reasons for lower satisfaction.

Methods
Twenty young adults were interviewed at GP surgeries and at a local young adult advice agency, exploring their experiences and use of primary care services. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis.

Results
The use of primary care services varied amongst the young adult interviewees. Many interviewees reported positive experiences; those who did not linked their negative experiences to difficulties in negotiating their care with the health care system, and reported issues with trust, and communication difficulties. Most of the interviewees were unaware of the use of patient surveys to inform healthcare planning and delivery and were not inclined to take part, mainly because of the length of surveys and lack of interest in the topic area.

Conclusions
In order to effectively address the health needs of young adults, young adults need to be educated about their rights as patients, and how to most efficiently use primary care services. GPs should be alert to effective means of approaching and handling the healthcare needs of young adults. A flexible, varied approach is needed to gathering high quality data from this group in order to provide services with information on the changes necessary for making primary care services more accessible for young adults.

Antoinette Davey, Mary Carter and John L. Campbell
Primary Care Research Group, University of Exeter Medical School, St Lukes Campus,
Exeter EX1 2LU, UK
This literature review focuses on what matters to young adults when they access
primary care services in the United Kingdom.
Patients’ access to and experience of primary care services differs across
age groups. Existing research has largely focused on the needs and experiences of
children, adolescents, and adults. There is some evidence to suggest the views
of young adults (aged 18–25 years) that may differ from the views of other age groups,
and research has not previously reported specifically on the views of this group of
the population.
The literature was reviewed to identify the views and priorities of young UK adults
regarding primary healthcare provision, and furthermore, to identify those related topics
that would benefit from further research. Relevant academic publications and grey
literature published from 2000 onwards was reviewed and synthesised. We identified
and reported emerging themes that were of importance to young adults in respect of the
UK primary care provision. A total of 19 papers met our inclusion criteria.
Young adults access primary care services less frequently than other age groups;
this may be because of their experience of primary care throughout childhood and
adolescence. Five aspects of primary care provision emerged as being of importance to
young adults – the accessibility and availability of services, the confidentiality of healthrelated
information, issues relating to communication with healthcare professionals,
continuity of care, and behaviours and attitudes expressed towards young adults by
healthcare professionals.
There is a lack of focus of current research on the expectations, needs, and primary
healthcare experiences of young adults. Young adults may hold views that are distinct
from other age groups. Further research is needed to better understand the needs of a
young adult population as their needs may impact the future use of services.