Objectives To first, validate in English hospitals the internal structure of the ‘Patient Evaluation of Emotional Care during Hospitalisation’ (PEECH) survey tool which was developed in Australia and, second, to examine how it may deepen the understanding of patient experience through comparison with results from the Picker Patient Experience Questionnaire (PPE-15).

Design A 48-item survey questionnaire comprising both PEECH and PPE-15 was fielded. We performed exploratory factor analysis and then confirmatory factor analysis using a number of established fit indices. The external validity of the PEECH factor scores was compared across four participating services and at the patient level, factor scores were correlated with the PPE-15.

Setting Four hospital services (an Emergency Admissions Unit; a maternity service; a Medicine for the Elderly department and a Haemato-oncology service) that contrasted in terms of the reported patient experience performance.

Participants Selection of these acute service settings was based on achieving variation of the following factors: teaching hospital/district general hospital, urban/rural locality and high-performing/low-performing organisations (using results of annual national staff and patient surveys). A total of 423 surveys were completed by patients (26% response rate).

Results A different internal structure to the PEECH instrument emerged in English hospitals. However, both the existing and new factor models were similar in terms of fit. The correlations between the new PEECH factors and the PPE-15 were all in the expected direction, but two of the new factors (personal interactions and feeling valued) were more strongly associated with the PPE-15 than the remaining two factors (feeling informed and treated as an individual).

Conclusions PEECH can help to build an understanding of complex interpersonal aspects of quality of care, alongside the more transactional and functional aspects typically captured by PPE-15. Further testing of the combined instrument should be undertaken in a wider range of healthcare settings.