Maternity friends and family test
If you are pregnant or new mum, you now have the opportunity to give us feedback on the care you receive.
The Friends and Family Test is an easy-to-understand, comparable question that is asked of pregnant or new mums about the care and treatment they have received. It will be used to drive cultural change and continuous improvements in the quality of the care received by NHS patients. It will enable the views of service users to be heard and provides a platform to shape and deliver better services.
Women are surveyed at three touch points:
- Antenatal care – to be surveyed at the 36 week antenatal appointment
- Birth and care on the postnatal ward – to be surveyed at discharge from the ward/birth unit/following a home birth
- Postnatal community care – to be surveyed at discharge from the care of the community midwifery team to the care of the health visitor/GP (usually at ten days postnatal)
'How likely are you to recommend our antenatal/birth/postnatal ward/postnatal community care to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?'
You will be invited to respond to the question by choosing one of six options, ranging from 'extremely likely' to 'extremely unlikely'.
It is important that you are given the opportunity to explain why you have given your answer, so please answer any follow-up questions.
You may be asked to answer the question before going home, or you may be invited to do so by returning a postcard, by phone or on a website.
It is not mandatory to complete the questionnaire but if you do it will help us improve our services.
If you feel that you should have been given the opportunity to respond but did not receive the question, please contact the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS).
We will then gather the results and analyse them to see if any action is required. An overall score will be published on this page every month.
For more information on Friends and Family Test visit NHS Choices website.