Tom Pey, director of policy and development at The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, said: "We are calling on the Healthcare Commission to ensure the views of visually impaired people and other disabled people are taken into account in future patient satisfaction surveys.
"The Healthcare Commission has published findings from five surveys asking patients to rate their experiences of different NHS services, and has given the NHS an overall 'thumbs up'.
"Guide Dogs believes that the diagnosis would not have been quite so positive if the experiences of disabled users of the NHS had been taken into account.
"We are campaigning for better visual impairment awareness training for all NHS staff, access to information in a format that visually impaired people can understand, and better physical access to GP surgeries and hospitals.
"But how are visually impaired patients, and other disabled patients, ever going to receive better treatment if their needs continue to be overlooked?
"These comments are based on a report recently published by the charity looking at the specific experiences of visually impaired patients, which uncovered the following alarming results: Over two thirds felt that their GP was unable to give them meaningful information on support services for visually impaired people.
"Ninety five per cent had never received health advice leaflets in preferred formats such as Braille or large print, 96 per cent had never received letters from GPs or hospital staff in preferred formats, 97 per cent had never received prescriptions in preferred formats and 40 per cent felt that their GP was not fully aware of their needs."
Stakeholder Response: Depression Alliance
Jim Thomson, chief executive of the Depression Alliance, said: " We welcome the efforts of the Healthcare Commission in promoting the inclusion of the service user perspective. Their work to date has been excellent, however, this recent survey does not reflect the experience of the vast majority of people who contact us.
"These are extremely vulnerable people who feel they have little say in their treatment and must be 'good' to access the minimum help they do receive.
"These are not the sorts of people who are able to represent themselves in surveys, or, more accurately, are enabled to represent themselves in these kinds of surveys.
"The mental health service user movement is gathering strength but the infrastructure to support it is still largely under-funded. The few who are willing and able to try and make a difference have already fought against all the odds to be diagnosed, treated, employed, accepted and finally, to become well.
"With the new GP contract which actually discourages the treatment of people with depression (a reason for around 1 in 3 consultations) we can expect to see an increasingly unwell population who are unable to participate in the laudable efforts of those who want to give them a voice."
Stakeholder Response: Help the Aged
Jonathan Ellis, Help the Aged's policy manager for health and social care, said:"The Healthcare Commission report paints a mixed picture of today's NHS. The findings suggest that the public can see the progress that is being made in the NHS, but demonstrates that there is still a long way to go before we have a health care system that gives patients more of a say in their care.
"Older people are the largest single group of users of health services, making up two-thirds of hospital in-patients and a sizable proportion of users of primary care.
"When we are talking about public views on the health service, we are talking mainly about the views of older people about how well services meet their needs and expectations.
"The survey identifies some important successes, such as the proportion of people over 65 receiving a flu jab. But it also identifies some causes for continuing concern, such as standards of cleanliness of toilets and bathrooms in hospitals, or the proportion of people receiving adequate information on their medication upon discharge from hospital.
A particular cause of concern to many older people is the continued use of mixed sex hospital accommodation, and the report found the 22 per cent of patients are still admitted to mixed sex wards, despite the government commitment to address the indignities associated with such facilities.
"The only way to ensure that health care services meet the needs and aspirations of older people is to ask older people what they think.
"Help the Aged therefore whole-heartedly supports the central message of the Healthcare Commission's report that patients should have more opportunities to get involved in decisions about their own care."
