Do sexual health staff know what patients want from services?

Although the 'patient provider partnership' is now supposed to be an integral part of modern clinical care, an assumption is often made by clinicians that they know what patients want from health services. Sexual health care is no different. In order to investigate the accuracy of this supposition, a survey was undertaken in February 2009 of all staff members working in the Department of Reproductive and Sexual Health (doctors, nurses and administrative staff) in Enfield. They were asked to predict what their patients' priorities were when accessing sexual health services. The results showed that nurses were the most accurate at anticipating what patients most valued, by correctly predicting their top three priorities (confidentiality, speed of service and rapid test results). Doctors were the least accurate and only predicted one of the top three patient priorities. These results are now being used locally to ensure that all members of the multidisciplinary team have input into the development of clinic guidelines and service design.