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This review article aims to analyse whether patient feedback and questionnaires improve quality of care. It is recognized that patients cannot assess the medical competence of the clinician, yet patient experience provides an insight into the process of care through the patients' eyes. Patient experience measures are more reliable for use to assess quality than patient satisfaction surveys. It is inappropriate to use patient satisfaction surveys as a basis for remuneration of dentists within the NHS. Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) have been a successful measure of patient experience in medicine and their introduction to dentistry needs to be considered.
CPD/Clinical Relevance: This article will enable clinicians to understand the importance of patient experience measures as a more reliable way of improving the quality of clinical care than patient satisfaction surveys.
Article
Patients are different from traditional ‘customers’. They seek ‘services’ with great trust in their ‘service provider’ and the ‘goods’ purchased are often the return to good health.1 Between 1980 and 1996, there was a five-fold increase in the number of publications relating to ‘patient satisfaction’ in the medical literature. This increase may be linked to the development of the consumer movement that started in the 1960s and 1970s. Nonetheless, this could reflect the ‘emerging competitiveness of managed care’, resulting in patient satisfaction surveys being used to differentiate between providers.2
The Department of Health defines quality as covering the three key domains of clinical effectiveness, patient experience and safety.3 This is similar to the American Dental Association mission of the Dental Quality Alliance to improve oral health, patient care, and safety through a consensus-building process.4 It is important to note that patient perceptions are central in definitions of quality.
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