PATIENTS have today praised the care received from staff at Calderdale Royal Hospital and Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

In a Healthcare Commission survey out today, 93% of inpatients surveyed said the care they received was either excellent (42%), very good (36%) or good (15%).

Overall, the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust was in the top 20% in the country in a number of areas.

Theses included confidence and trust in doctors (89%), confidence and trust in nurses (88%), privacy during treatment (93%) and staff answering questions about a patient’s treatment or procedure (86%).

Two areas in which the Trust performed badly were on information given to patients in the Accident & Emergency department and information given to patients during treatment.

The survey is one of the largest ever carried out among hospital patients and posed many questions.

Trust Chairman Sukhdev Sharma said: “Our patients are central to everything we do at this Trust and so to hear of their approval in such a resounding way is a tremendous and well-deserved boost for our staff.

“This year we have treated just under 100,000 inpatients – the most patients ever – and we always try to make sure they receive the best treatment from us at all times.”

The national survey is the fifth of its kind. 166 Trusts were surveyed and 76,000 patients responded.

Patients surveyed were all aged 16 and over and had spent at least one night in hospital.

Across the UK, patients believe cleanliness levels in NHS hospitals are not improving, the health watchdog said today.

The Healthcare Commission also found wide variations in patients’ experience of cleanliness between health trusts in England.

Its patient survey reported “striking” differences between health service trusts on some areas of patient care.

The biggest variations came in waiting for admission to hospital, mixed-sex wards, help with eating meals and food quality.

The results revealed those rating their care as “excellent” went up from 41% in 2006 to 42% last year.

Patients also reported slight improvements in how quickly they were admitted to emergency departments.

The survey found the number of patients reporting their hospital was “very clean” fell from 56% in 2002 to 53% in 2007 and has not improved since last year.

The best performing trusts found around 80% of those asked said their room or ward was “very clean”.

Fewer than half of patients reported lavatories and bathrooms were very clean.

In the best trusts this figure was as high as 81% but in the worst was as low as 22%.