PIF Membership Surveys
PiF Survey of NHS Trusts in England
November 2010
The 2010/11 budget cuts and restructure of the NHS, as well as the Information Revolution and Choice strategies may have a major impact on health information in the NHS and outside it.
The aim of this PiF survey was to establish the state of patient health information in individual NHS Trusts in England. The answers to the questions in the survey will help PIF and its members to understand what’s happening ‘on the ground’ and to provide information that will help us to respond appropriately.
The survey asked
questions about the patient information functions and services at NHS
Trusts in England, included those of staff roles, budgets, Board level
support, standards for health information and the standards each Trust
adopted. The survey also asked respondents about the future of patient
information at their Trust, whether it was under threat and what could
be the implications of the current changes taking place in the NHS.
Health information staff from 67 Trusts took part in the survey, though not all of these answered every question.
To read the summary results click here. If you would like a copy of the full results please email operations@pifonline.org.uk for a copy.
Click here to download a press release on the survey results.
PiF Pulse (Membership Survey)
"PiF is the one place where there are real experts in the area. However the feel of the organisation is not some grand distant expert but the organisation has a very supportive feel."
2010 survey respondent
Every two years PiF surveys its members to find out what they want from the organisation, what the big issues in health information are and how future services can meet member needs. The surveys are developed with input from members of the PiF Advisory Group and conducted on-line. A brief summary of the survey, plus the results are available to download below.
PiF Supporters and Partners are offered the opportunity to include one question in the survey.
2010 Survey
123 members took part in the PiF membership survey in 2010'. The aim of the membership survey was twofold:
- To help us, and you, get a clear picture of consumer health information in the UK - this gives us the information to campaign or lobby on your behalf and helps you to see what others are doing.
- To help us develop membership benefits and services for you, which meet your needs.
The headlines below give just a small flavour of the results. A more detailed report can be downloaded by clicking here. For the questions where respondents were asked to give their comments, a selection of quotes have been given which cover the main points.
"It's still very difficult to get clinicians and politicians to take this work seriously despite lobbying and despite all the political drivers, the latest being the pledges in the NHS Constitution. Despite this being a standard with which NHS trusts must comply, it's still subject to a lip service and lack of response in some quarters."
2010 Survey respondent
- The average PiF member is educated to a high level, works in a senior or middle management position and is active in their professional development. That’s great news for the sector and for the future of consumer health information.
- As a format, web based information had caught up with printed, though there are still large numbers of you offering printed information. Newer forms of information delivery are still not used widely.
- The budget spend on health information, and the staff resources allocated to it, still seems to be very small compared to the size of many organisations. Half of respondents are NHS organisations, yet half of respondents are spending less than £10,000 a year.
- Health information in general seems to be increasing in importance in the NHS, but it's worrying that most NHS respondents have no allocated budget for it. It seems that the importance isn’t reflected in physical resources.
- Some of the main issues in consumer health information are lack of money, resources and board level/management support for health information; poor evidence, or lack of evidence, about the efficacy of health information; best practice and sharing; and access and quality issues.
2007 Survey
"There is so much duplication in the NHS. We are all doing similar things and when this is not shared it means organisations are spending time and money that could be saved."
2007 Survey respondent
This survey focused on membership, on finding out the profile of members, which services they used and what they thought about them and how they viewed the orgnaistion.
For a summary of results click here.
Page last edited: 22 September 2011
