Patient satisfaction: A valid concept?

Over the past 10 yr consumer satisfaction has gained widespread recognition as a measure of quality in many public sector services. This has become manifest in the NHS in the call by the 1983 NHS Management inquiry to ascertain how well the service is being delivered at local level by obtaining the experience and perceptions of patients and the community. Patient satisfaction is now deemed an important outcome measure for health services; however, this professed utility rests on a number of implicit assumptions about the nature and meaning of expressions of 'satisfaction'. Through a review of past research findings this paper suggests that patients may have a complex set of important and relevant beliefs which cannot be embodied in terms of expressions of satisfaction. Consequently, many satisfaction surveys provide only an illusion of consumerism producing results which tend only to endorse the status quo. For service providers to meaningfully ascertain the experience and perceptions of patients and the community then research must first be conducted to identify the ways and terms in which those patients perceive and evaluate that service.