More than 85 percent of patients who took part in survey rating their treatment at Epsom, Sutton and St Helier hospitals have said they were extremely likely or likely to recommend the hospital to loved ones.

The Friends and Family Test, which officially launched in hospitals across the UK on April 1, will see those patients who have stayed in hospital overnight and those who have needed treatment in A&E asked “How likely are you to recommend our wards or A&E department to friends and family if they need similar care or treatment?”

Patients are then asked to respond from a number of options from ‘extremely unlikely’ to ‘extremely likely.’

Director of Nursing Pippa Hart said: “We are really pleased with the findings from our Friends and Family Test pilot, and hope that we will continue to see such positive results when the first official data is published in July.

“Asking our patients to tell us if they rate us highly enough to recommend our services to a loved one will put the voice and opinion of our patients at the very heart of what we do, and will give us a clear indication of what we need to focus on and improve.

“In addition, it will mean that staff from across our hospitals will have access to up-to-date patient feedback, and will be able to change any areas of weak performance and build on our success.

“Of course, we already have a number of ways of telling what our patients think of our services, from the ‘how was your stay’ questionnaires to the feedback we ask for on NHS Choices (the NHS equivalent of TripAdvisor), but we want to make it as easy as possible for people to have their say, and are pleased to be a part of the ‘Friends and Family Test’.”

For more information about the ‘Friends and Family Test’, visit nhs.uk/friendsandfamily.