Patient satisfaction with gender identity clinic services in the United Kingdom.

Measuring patient satisfaction is important in assessing healthcare outcomes due to the growing emphasis on greater partnership between providers and consumers. National Health Service (NHS) commissioning bodies in the United Kingdom increasingly expect patient satisfaction to be included as a service performance indicator as it is regarded as part of the definition of quality of care. The aim of this survey is to better understand levels of satisfaction with current gender identity clinic services (GICs) provision and to identify areas for improvement. A Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSQ-GD) was developed specifically for use in GICs in the United Kingdom, which was given to all patients during one month. PSQ-GD covers clinical care, administrative and procedural issues as well as patient experience of local service provision from their General Practitioner, local psychiatric services and speech therapy. A total of 330 PSQ-GD were given with a response rate of 85%. Ninety-four percent would recommend the services if a friend or relative had a gender-related problem. Twenty percent were dissatisfied with the level of support for others close to the patient. Thirty-one percent were dissatisfied with local psychiatric services. Twenty-seven percent were dissatisfied with the wait for the first appointment. Administration scored high on satisfaction. A total of 222 positive and 131 negative comments were made. The PSQ-GD offers an opportunity to understand levels of satisfaction with current gender service provision and identifies areas for improvement, most notably the interface between GICs and local psychiatric services. Findings from this study put individual complaints in perspective and show that despite the challenges inherent in providing transgender care good satisfaction can be achieved. We encourage gender care providers to implement quality assurance and improvement procedures to give people with gender dysphoria the opportunity to provide feedback and have a voice in shaping their own health care. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]