Seeking consumer views: what use are results of hospital patient satisfaction surveys?

There has been increasing emphasis on the use of patient satisfaction surve ys in publicly funded health services to assess elements of quality of care . However, how these surveys are used to change policy and services has rec eived less attention. This paper reports on two different surveys conducted in Victoria, Australia and how these have developed and been used at a pol icy level. One is a survey of recent mothers, repeated three times over the course of the decade. The other is an inpatient survey developed over the past 5 years. The results of the surveys are publicly available and are one means of obtaining consumer views, influencing health care quality and rep orting to the public.