DORSET County Hospital continues to get good feedback from inpatient satisfaction surveys.

It has come fifth in the country for its emergency department – despite the fact that demand is currently said to be at ‘unprecedented’ levels.

Also scoring highly was hospital housekeeping, that the place is kept clean and tidy; that patients are treated with dignity and respect and that 90 per cent said they have confidence and trust in their doctors.

Overall the hospital came 23rd out of 77 in a national league table.

“We have done really well in all the national surveys this year,” Alison Male, Patient and Public Engagement Lead, told a board of governors meeting on Monday.

Dorchester governor Naomi Patterson told the meeting that after she had expressed concerns about some of the questions for children’s services she had been invited to help the group setting up the survey – resulting in the 80 proposed questions being whittled down to a relatively small number which parents would understand.

Just over 1,200 DCH inpatients were eligible for the survey of which 649 returned a completed questionnaire, an eight per cent increase on the previous year.

In the responses 68 per cent said the hospital food was very good, or good; 17 per cent said their discharge was delayed by no longer than an hour; 73 per cent said staff did not contradict each other; 79 per cent said the information they were given was at the right level and 81 per cent said their planned admission date was not changed.

On the negative side some patients said they could have been given more information about their treatment or condition on discharge or how they might feel after an operation.