It has come to light that a large number of patients had to alter their appointments with specialist more than twice. The information has been provided by a survey which was conducted over 72,000 patients. The participants of the survey had visited the outpatient departments of 163 NHS trusts of England in April 2011.

It has been revealed that the treatment provided to the patients in the hospitals has improved which has enabled the patients in getting effective care and thus they have been changing their appointments. The findings of the survey were published by Care Quality Commission. The Chief Executive of Care Quality Commission, Cynthia Bower, emphasized, “…more still needs to be done to ensure that outpatients know what to expect, have tests and treatments explained to them clearly and are properly informed about the potential side-effects of any medications they are prescribed”.

In the previous surveys, it was found that many of the patients are not made aware about the results of the tests, which in turn affects the confidence of the patients over the trust. Therefore, it has been recommended that patients should be provided with adequate information.

During the survey, it was found that patients are finding the services of the trusts satisfactory for example the toilets are cleaner and hygiene is being maintained almost at all trusts. The patients now are treated with respect and dignity. Recently, a website was launched which allowed patients to rank various hospitals according to their experience they had there.

It was found that the ranking system had also helped patients in deciding as to where they would like to seek treatment. Because of the ranking system many patient had also got their appointments changed to somewhere else. It seems like patients are now taking interest in their health care.