BUPA calls for compulsory collection of PROMs in all private hospitals

Real choice for patients and commissioners

will not be possible until all hospitals in the private sector routinely collect and assess patient reported outcomes measures (PROMs) for quality improvement, says Bupa's group medical director, Dr Andrew Vallance-Owen.

Speaking this evening at The Royal Society of Medicine (RSM), Dr Vallance-Owen will call for all private hospitals to collect PROMs for at least four areas - hip and knee replacements, groin hernia repair and varicose vein operations.

This will be compulsory within the NHS in 2009 and independent sector involvement will work towards establishing a shared database to ensure fair comparisons and true patient choice.

Ahead of the RSM meeting, Dr Vallance-Owen said: "The main challenge faced by public and private healthcare providers is the same - to make health and care personal; to make it beneficial to patients and to make it measurable.

"Doctors are good at measuring the state of people's health when they develop a problem, treating most conditions and measuring when things go wrong, for example, mortality rates, infection rates and unexpected re-admissions.

However, they haven't been as good at the routine measurement of success or health gain after treatment which is actually much more common.

This information needs to come directly from patients and PROMs are a good way of measuring the benefits that patients have gained from treatment." The process that Bupa implemented in 1999, and has now been trialled in selected NHS hospitals, is based on an initial questionnaire completed by the patient on admission.

A follow-up questionnaire will be sent to the patient 12 weeks after treatment.

Participation by patients is voluntary and, in the Bupa programme, they cannot be identified by their doctors.

Dr Vallance-Owen continued: "The purpose of collecting data is to help doctors and clinical teams to continue to improve quality and to concentrate on the things that they do well.

It will also help GPs and their patients make more informed choices about providers and enable commissioners to assess the effectiveness of their contracts with hospitals and units.

"Although cost and efficiency will always be important when budgets are limited, effectiveness, that is benefit to patients, is the most important indicator.

The challenge for my professional colleagues is to take up the outcomes agenda and drive it forward.

We need to place patients firmly at the centre of things so that PROMs have a greater role to play in creating the best possible health service for the future.".

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