Scottish Health and Care Experience Survey 2015/16 - Technical Report

Scottish Health and Care Experience Survey 2015/16. This is a postal survey which was sent to a random sample of patients who were registered with a GP in Scotland in October 2015. This report contains details of the survey design and development.

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6 Data Entry and fieldwork quality control

Data capture

6.1 Once the survey was issued, paper copies of questionnaires received were logged and scanned on a daily basis by staff at Quality Health Ltd. A verification process was then carried out for each batch scanned and a number of integrity checks were undertaken to ensure that the scanning process had worked correctly and all data had been captured as expected.

6.2 Data from online questionnaires is automatically stored alongside the data from the paper questionnaires.

Verification & upload process

6.3 Once captured, all data are checked in house by Quality Health Ltd according to pre-set verification rules, by staff who have been given training and detailed instructions about the survey. The data entry system ensured that only valid answer codes for each question could be entered and that the correct data appeared in each field. Other checks included ensuring that numeric data was the correct format and that fields were not truncated in error.

Secure disposal

6.4 Once processed, all returned questionnaires were immediately stored in labelled containers and archived in a secure room on-site until they reached their agreed destruction date. Once destroyed a certificate of destruction was received.

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6.5 The survey asked respondents if there was anything else that they would like to tell us about their experiences of their local GP practice, Out of Hours health care, or care and support services.

6.6 Just over 36,000 respondents left comments with approximately 30,000 relating to the GP practice, roughly 12,000 relating to Out of Hours Healthcare, and roughly 8,000 relating to care and support services.

6.7 Disclosive details that could be used to identify patients were suppressed when the comments were entered. These details included personal names, addresses, ages, dates, medications and medical conditions. Staff names were also suppressed.

6.8 Quality checks were undertaken on records to ensure that the instructions for suppressing disclosive details were followed.

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