National Inpatient Experience Survey

Data Collection Type
National surveys
Organisation

Partnership between HIQA, HSE and Department of Health with HIQA as lead partner.

Year established

2017

Statement of purpose

The National Care Experience Programme asks people about their experiences of care in order to improve the quality of health and social care services in Ireland.

All acute public hospitals participate in the National Inpatient Experience Survey.

Coverage (geographical and temporal)

National.

The National Inpatient Experience Survey commenced in 2017 and is ongoing on an annual basis (except in 2020).

Description/Summary

The overall purpose and objective of the National Care Experience Programme is to engage with and understand the experience of patients and use this feedback to inform the future development, planning, design and delivery of patient-centred care.

The target population for the National Inpatient Experience Survey includes all patients aged 16 and over, who have spent a minimum of 24 hours in a public acute hospital, have been discharged during a specific month and who hold a postal address in the Republic of Ireland.

Data users

HSE, Department of Health, HIQA, researchers and academia, and patient representative organisations.

Data content

The National Inpatient Experience Survey gathers information on experiences of care, as patient’s progress through the hospital system. Information is gathered on the following themes: admission to hospital, the ward environment, care and treatment, interaction with staff, the discharge process, and care during COVID-19. Additional information is gathered on patient demographics (self-reported).

Data dictionary

https://yourexperience.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/NPE_Survey_DataDictionary.pdf

National-level identifier variables

National-level identifier variables are not collected, however name, address and date of birth are collected.

Equity stratifiers

Sex, age, ethnicity, home address and medical card status are collected.

Data collection methodology

Information on patient experience is collected through a structured survey questionnaire. The survey asks 64 structured tick-box questions as well as three open-ended questions for comments. The survey can be completed online or by returning the questionnaire via freepost. The data is collected on an annual basis.

Clinical coding scheme

N/A.

Size of national collection

A total of 50,196 people have responded to the survey: 13,706 in 2017; 13,404 in 2018; 12,343 in 2019 and 10,743 in 2021.

Publication frequency

The National Inpatient Experience Survey is conducted annually.

Accessing data

1. Public reporting of data in an aggregate format: reports available on https://yourexperience.ie/
2. Data request forms are available at: https://yourexperience.ie/about/contact-us/request-data-for-research/ and https://yourexperience.ie/about/contact-us/request-personal-data/
3. Access to real time survey responses via a survey portal — national and hospital views of data in an aggregate format, available to service providers.

Open data portal access

National Inpatient Experience Survey - https://yourexperience.ie/inpatient/interactive-charts/

Email contact
Telephone contact
Other comments

The National Inpatient Experience Survey is the largest national patient experience survey ever conducted in Ireland: over 10,000 people participate in the survey annually. The survey has been undertaken in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021.

To date, the National Inpatient Experience Survey and the National Maternity Experience Survey have been conducted as part of the National Care Experience Programme. In 2022, three further surveys, the National Nursing Home Experience Survey, the National Maternity Bereavement Experience Survey and National End of Life Survey are in development. See https://yourexperience.ie/