Developing an Out‐patient Satisfaction Survey : An In‐house Example

Describes the six stages involved in developing a satisfaction survey for out‐patients attending a London teaching hospital, using existing expertise within the organization. These are: information gathering; item selection; the pilot; analysing the results; questionnaire amendment; and reporting back results to the organization. Shows the feasibility of developing satisfaction questionnaires using expertise within a hospital but also points out the difficulty of getting a satisfactorily high response rate and suggests means of improving this. Also highlights the greater dissatisfaction with services experienced by on‐whites compared with whites.