Background
The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 made it a statutory requirement that all service users must be treated with dignity and respect. It is also one of the key NHS values that is written into the NHS Constitution. This includes making sure that people have privacy when they need and want it, treating them as equals and providing any support they might need to be independent. The national patient surveys ask service users whether they felt they were treated with respect and dignity, the responses to which we explore here.
Several national patient surveys ask service users whether they felt that they were treated with respect and dignity. It is useful to compare people's responses to understand how experience varies across NHS services.
90% of 2020 Children and Young People's Survey respondents (parents or carers of children aged 0 to 15 who had been admitted to hospital) reported that they were ‘always’ treated with respect and dignity by the people looking after their child. Their responses were the most favourable, closely followed by the 2023 Cancer Patient Experience Survey respondents who had been admitted to hospital overnight for cancer care in the past 12 months (87%). 85% of 2024 Maternity Services Survey respondents stated that they were always treated with respect and dignity while they were being cared for during labour and birth. 82% of 2023 Adult Inpatient Survey respondents stated that overall, they were ‘always’ treated with respect and dignity while they were in hospital.
Comparatively, the services with some of the least positive responses were urgent and emergency care and mental healthcare. 70% of 2024 Urgent and Emergency Care Survey respondents said they were treated with respect and dignity ‘all of the time’ that they were in A&E. Meanwhile, only 65% of 2023 Community Mental Health Survey respondents said that overall they were ‘always’ treated with respect and dignity by NHS mental health services in the last 12 months, and 10% said they were not.
The differences in responses between the surveys may reflect the demographics of respondents, as well as experience of services. For example, older people tend to respond more positively in surveys, and a higher proportion of inpatients are in older age groups compared with community mental health service users. Additionally, while the most recent results for each survey are presented here, they were carried out at different times (fieldwork for the Children and Young People’s Survey was carried out pre-pandemic, while the others were during or post-pandemic).
Adult Inpatient Survey respondents are asked, “Overall, did you feel you were treated with respect and dignity while you were in the hospital?” The proportion of respondents who felt they were ‘always’ treated with respect and dignity increased slightly over time, from 78% in 2009 to 81% in 2019. Those who felt they were not treated with respect and dignity decreased very slightly from 3.5% to 3% over the same period.
In 2020, 85% of respondents felt they were ‘always’ treated with respect and dignity while they were in the hospital, which decreased slightly to 82% in 2023. The proportion of those who felt that they were not treated with respect and dignity rose slightly from 1.9% in 2020 to 2.3% in 2023. These results are not comparable with previous years due to changes in the 2020 survey. See ‘About this data’ for more information.
Between 2014 and 2022, the proportion of respondents who felt that they were ‘always’ treated with respect and dignity decreased from 74% to 69%. The proportion who felt that they were not treated with respect and dignity increased from 7% to 10% over the same period.
2023 Community Mental Health Survey respondents were asked, “Overall, in the last 12 months, did you feel that you were treated with respect and dignity by NHS mental health services?” In 2023, 65% of respondents felt that they were ‘always’ treated with respect and dignity and 11% felt that they were not treated with respect and dignity. Due to methodological changes in the 2023 Community Mental Health Survey, the results for 2023 are not comparable with results from prior years. For more information, see the ‘About the data’ section.
About this data
These indicators draw on data from the Adult Inpatient Survey, the Children and Young People's Survey, the Urgent and Emergency Care Survey, the Maternity Services Survey, the Community Mental Health Survey and the Cancer Patient Experience Survey.
For each Care Quality Commission survey, two weights have been applied to the survey results data:
- a trust weight to ensure that each trust contributes equally to the England average, and
- a population weight, to make sure each trust’s results are representative of their own sample and do not over-represent particular groups, such as older respondents.
A combination of the two weights results in one single weighting, which has been applied to enable comparisons between years.
Note that data from the most recent survey publications are used for comparison. Our comparison across NHS services does not adjust for differences in survey populations; therefore, the results may not be directly comparable.
For the 2020 Adult Inpatient Survey, participants were offered the choice of responding online or via paper-based questionnaires for the first time, and the questions, terminology and methodology used in the survey were updated. Therefore, the 2020 survey results are not comparable with previous years.
The 2023 Community Mental Health Survey data differs significantly from previous years due to major changes in methodology, sampling period, and questionnaire content, rendering the 2023 results not comparable with prior years. Key updates included a shift from a paper-only questionnaire to a mixed mode allowing online responses, a shortened sampling period from September–November to April–May, and revised eligibility criteria to include 16- and 17-year-olds while excluding individuals using memory clinics. These adjustments led to a complete redevelopment of the questionnaire, breaking the trend data and shortening fieldwork from 18 weeks to 13 weeks. For the 2023 Community Mental Health Survey, people were eligible if they received treatment for a mental health condition between 1 April and 31 May 2023. Fieldwork took place between 18 August and 1 December 2023.
For more information please see NHS England, National Patient and Staff Surveys.