Draws on data from almost 2,700 Aboriginal patients who were admitted to a NSW public hospital in 2014.

Summary

This edition of Patient Perspectives describes the experiences of 2,682 Aboriginal people who were admitted to a NSW public hospital during 2014.

Within the 2014 Adult Admitted Patient Survey (AAPS), about 13,000 questionnaires were sent to Aboriginal people in the three months following their discharge from one of 80 NSW public hospitals. The response rate among Aboriginal patients was 21%.

NSW level results – how did Aboriginal patients rate their experiences of care?

Most Aboriginal patients rated the care they received overall in hospital as either ‘very good’ (64%) or ‘good’ (25%). While a similar proportion of non- Aboriginal patients (63%) rated hospital care overall as ‘very good’, for 26 of the 55 survey questions analysed in this report, Aboriginal patients were less positive than non-Aboriginal patients.

In general, questions about directly observable elements of care such as physical environment and comfort, safety and hygiene were answered similarly by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal patients.

In contrast, for questions that focused on interpersonal or relational aspects of care – such as respectfulness of staff and delivery of comprehensive and whole-person care – there were marked differences between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal patients’ responses.

The widest gaps between the two groups were seen in questions about whether patients were ‘always’ given enough privacy when discussing their condition or treatment (Aboriginal patients 72% and non-Aboriginal patients 81%) and whether doctors 'always' answered important questions in an understandable way (66% and 74%).

For one question only, Aboriginal patients were more positive than non-Aboriginal patients. Aboriginal patients were more likely to say they saw or received information about patient rights, including the right to complain (46% and 39%)