A PATIENT survey reveals the county's NHS Trust is under-performing in several key areas.

The survey, conducted by the Picker Institute, revealed key failings at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust in 11 areas.

The Inpatient survey 2006 involved a study of 495 people who use the hospitals and facilities run by the trust and the findings were discussed at a board meeting.

The institute is an independent, not-for-profit research and development institute with charitable status, measuring patients' experiences.

The survey suggested that the trust showed was "significantly worse than the Picker average' in the following areas:

* Organisation of admissions.

* Poor hospital food.

* Unhealthy food.

* Not enough nurses on duty.

* Not enough patient involvement in decisions.

* Not enough opportunities to talk to doctors.

* Not enough time for patients to discuss their recovery.

* Poor information for patients upon discharge.

* No copies of letters supplied to patients of correspondence between hospital doctors and GPs.

* Doctors and nurses working together ranked "poor" or "fair".

* Not asked to give views on quality of care.

According to the survey, the trust had worsened significantly in two areas since 2005 - the number of nurses on duty and controlling patient pain.

An action plan has since been developed through talks between staff and a public and patient involvement forum to spearhead improvements.

Suggestions include improved communications during hospital admissions, a nutrition group to focus on healthy eating, matrons to be involved in food tasting and the PPI forum to have a role in setting the menus.

The findings also suggested less cluttered wards, a medicine helpline for older people and more standardised procedures for doctors doing their rounds.

The trust improved significantly in two areas - fewer admission dates had been changed for patients than the 2005 survey and fewer staff were said to "contradict" each other. The scores were average in the other 68 categories of the survey.