Purpose To assess the satisfaction level with our service’s internal and external customers in order to make improvements and compare current results with those from 2013.

Material and methods Following our hospital pharmacy quality standards procedures, a series of anonymous, voluntary satisfaction surveys were carried out. The survey for internal customers (doctors and nurses) measured their global opinion, organisation, accessibility and ability of response via 9 questions, with 5 options each, scaled from highly satisfactory to fully unsatisfactory. The external customers’ survey contained 11 questions about accessibility, waiting times, quality of information given and ease of contact. Data were compiled between 26 October and 3 December 2015.

Results 54 completed surveys were available from doctors (27%), 48 from nurses (24%) and 67 from outpatients (44.7%). 76.3% of doctors gave a high satisfaction level (satisfactory or highly satisfactory, scores 4 and 5), a higher proportion compared with 2013 (65.0%). The top rated item was the global opinion on the service, and the lowest items were those related to knowledge offered and the current state of prescription (dispensation–administration circuit). In consequence, we proposed actions such as computer provided order entry (CPOE) implementation and information circuit improvements. Nurses also reported being satisfied with our service (56.7% scores 4 and 5, slightly higher than the results in 2013 (54.8%)). Personal care and response ability were the top rated items, response time being the one that received the worst scores. We propose increasing the number of dispensing time slots, to improve our information circuits, and to request a new watchman to improve medication intrahospital logistics. Regarding patients, most gave high satisfaction scores for all items, higher than those in 2013. We decided to implement a patient citation system to shorten waiting times. In all three surveys we observed a growing trend in satisfaction.

Conclusion Surveying satisfaction levels allows us to identify improvement areas, to assess if previously taken measures had increased customer satisfaction about our service. Actions taken after this series of surveys need to be followed-up to make sure they are properly applied and give the expected results.

No conflict of interest