PATIENTS are leading the way in saying what needs improving at four local hospitals.

In 2013, Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust changed how it judges standards at Fairfield, North Manchester General and Royal Oldham hospitals, along with Rochdale Infirmary.

For the first time, patients and members of the public were given the chance to inspect the hospitals and three annual assessments have so far been carried out.

The scheme is called patient-led assessments of care environment (PLACE).

A new report published by the trust says PLACE "aims to provide a snapshot of how an organisation is performing against a range of non-clinical activities, which impact on the patient experience of care."

The measured categories are: Cleanliness; food and hydration; privacy, dignity and wellbeing; and condition, appearance and maintenance.

The most recent inspections were done between February and May, 2015, with 30 patients and 50 staff making 21 visits.

Fairfield improved on the previous year's grading in three of the four categories but got worse in the condition appearance and maintenance category.

North Manchester improved cleanliness and privacy, dignity and wellbeing, but got worse in food and hydration and condition, appearance and maintenance.

Royal Oldham improved in all categories except for food and hydration and Rochdale Infirmary did better all round.

In 2015, a new category was added to assess how equipped hospitals are in meeting the needs of dementia sufferers.

Of the four hospitals, Royal Oldham scored highest, followed by Fairfield, Rochdale and North Manchester.

The report, written by the trust's support services deputy director Pam Miller, summarises what hospital leaders learned from the inspections and how they have tried to put things right.

"Action plans have been developed to address all issues noted during the inspections and distributed to the appropriate managers for rectification," Mrs Miller says.

She adds: "All issues relating to staffing have been escalated to the matrons."

The report details 11 action points for the food and hydration section, including ensuring that appropriate cutlery and crockery is provided, that courses are served separately and that water and napkins are served with meals.

There are separate action points for the other areas measured.

"Some failures will be very difficult to remedy, (such as a recommendation that there should be day rooms and separate dining rooms on all wards and provision of free television)."

Mrs Miller praised the PLACE patient inspectors for their efforts.

Visit tinyurl.com/pennineplace to read the full report.