Hospital care and discharge: patients' and carers' opinions.

Recent policy has emphasized the importance of patients as health service consumers and of care in the community. This paper describes a postal study which investigated patients' and carers' opinions of hospital care and discharge in three district health authorities. Overall, comments were positive about nursing care but more critical of environmental issues. More carers than patients made positive comments and more patients than carers made negative comments about the time spent in hospital. Carers were more likely to comment on medical aspects whereas patients seemed more concerned with social and environmental issues. Carers were more likely than patients to be dissatisfied with discharge arrangements, including length of notice, and more likely to think that discharge had been premature. These differences indicate the value of collecting both patients' and carers' opinions.