Why choose Dorset County Hospital?

Contents

Other information:

Waiting Times

 

Clinical Excellence

 

Infection Prevention and Control

 

News releases

 

Hospital magazine

 

Foundation Trust

 

Our services

NHS Choices provides a full list of services offered by the Trust.

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Referrals: Choose & Book

GPs & specialist referrals

This section aims to give information on how to refer patients to Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

These referrals are generally made by General Practitioners, General Dental Practitioners and consultants from other hospitals.

Patients are normally referred to Dorset County Hospital by a letter addressed to the relevant department preferably without naming a consultant to ensure your patients are seen as promptly as possible.

Click on the following links for an Inter Provider Transfer Form
Transfer Form - PDF version
Transfer Form - Word version

Choose & Book

Choose & Book is a national computer–based scheme offering patients a choice of hospital, time and date for their outpatient appointments. In discussion with their patient, GPs can identify several clinically appropriate hospitals for the patient to choose from and the patient can then book their appointment through a local NHS booking service or by booking the appointment themselves online.

The Trust was one of the first to register all its Choose & Book services with the scheme and patients have been booking their appointments at the Trust since July 2006.

In a recent survey conducted by the Dorset PCT, 88% of patients surveyed rated the new system positively, with 40% rating it as excellent. It is clear that patients appreciate the convenience of choosing the date and time of their appointment.

Visit the NHS Choose & Book website.

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Patient surveys

The Healthcare Commission promotes improvement in the quality of the NHS across England and Wales. An integral part of this work is the annual national patient surveys. The surveys provide a vital step to encourage hospitals and other health services to meet the needs of patients by asking what they, as patients, think about the NHS.

One way of doing this is by carrying out surveys of patients who have recently used the health service. The design of the national patient surveys is to provide detailed feedback to us as healthcare providers about these experiences in the services we provide. The Healthcare Commission uses the information drawn from the survey when assessing the Trust for the headline NHS Performance Indicators.

The publication of survey data nationally allows trusts to make meaningful comparisons with each other and allows us to monitor our own performance.

The National Patient Surveys have been in existence since 2003 and covers the areas of Inpatient, Emergency Care, Outpatients and Maternity.

Useful links

Healthcare Commission National Findings

The Healthcare Commission’s National Findings section, which outlines all patient surveys being undertaken.

Reports on Standards of Care at Dorset County Hospital

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