Patients who use Ashford's hospital have been having their say on the quality of care they received.

A public meeting was held last Wednesday to discuss services at the William Harvey, ahead of new inspections under the latest government protocols.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is in charge of looking into standards of care at the country’s hospitals, GP’s surgeries, dentists and care homes.

And hospitals in east Kent, including the Harvey, are the first in the country to be checked under new inspection arrangements.

Around 40 people met with CQC staff at the Ashford International Hotel in Simone Weil Avenue to discuss their experiences.

Diane Wake is chair of the review. Speaking at the meeting, she said: “We’re here to listen to users of the William Harvey and their views on what the quality of the service is like.

“As an inspection team, it’s really important that we go in to the hospitals and look at how services are delivered. The main priorities are to find out are those services of good quality, and are they safe.

“One of the most important features is to listen to users of the service, so we’ve been very keen to collect opinion and these listening events are critical to that.

“We don’t just take one person’s views about the service, one person might say one thing about an organisation, but we test that out, is that a one off or is it happening all the time?

“That allows us to develop our key lines of enquiry, where we need to probe and if something is coming up again and again, we might focus on.

“And we don’t just want to collect negative views, we want to hear what’s good about east Kent hospitals, and we want to be able to show that in our report.”

Two similar meetings were held in Margate and Canterbury, where the QEQM and Kent and Canterbury hospitals will be inspected.

To have your say click here or call 03000 616161