Quality outcomes

Dr Crippen has referred many times to the government’s obsession with measuring performance in the NHS.

I draw your attention to the latest method of auditing patient satisfaction.

An NHS trust in Cornwall has been criticised for telling nurses to record the number of boxes of chocolates left for staff by grateful patients.

Managers at the Royal Cornwall Hospital NHS Trust said they used the procedure, dubbed by staff as a "chocolate audit", to assess patient satisfaction.

Figures for the trust, which is responsible for hospital sites at Treliske, Penzance and Hayle, showed that in 2005 there were 8,000 gestures of gratitude, including boxes of chocolates and thank-you cards and letters, compared with 316 letters of complaint for the year.

Jono Broad, of the North Devon Patient and Public Involvement Forum, said: "It's sheer lunacy - management madness in the extreme.

"It's all because the rules say nurses cannot accept gifts from patients - even if it is just a box of Quality Street.

"They have to record how much the gift is worth and who it came from. Then the sweets are shoved into a cupboard."

What a joy.


Reported by the BBC