Patient Experience Assessment

The independent global benchmark for patient experience maturity.

Assessment · Certification · Pathway to the Experience Excellence Awards

 

Patient Experience is clinical quality. Prove the capability behind it.

Every healthcare organisation now recognises patient experience as a strategic and clinical priority. Far fewer can demonstrate that the experience patients, families, and carers actually receive is designed, governed, and measured with the same rigour as safety or financial performance. That gap — between intent and evidence — is where complaints rise, regulators intervene, staff morale suffers, and public trust is lost.

The PX Patient Experience Excellence Assessment closes that gap. It is the independent, evidence-based diagnostic that tells you — and anyone you need to convince — exactly how mature your patient experience capability really is, where it is strongest, where it is fragile, and what the path to a genuinely world-class service looks like.

If you cannot measure your patient experience capability against a published international framework standard, you cannot defend it, fund it, or improve it with confidence.

Who the Assessment is built for

Executive & clinical leaders

Who need an independent, defensible read on whether patient experience investment is producing real capability — not just activity, policies, or good intentions.

PX, Quality & Patient Voice teams

Who want a structured roadmap to prioritise improvement, secure funding, and demonstrate year-on-year progress against an external benchmark.

Boards, Regulators & Commissioners

Who require assurance that patient experience is governed, measurable, and aligned with clinical safety, regulatory, and accreditation obligations.

What it Replaces

  • Standalone patient satisfaction surveys that measure outcomes but not the capability producing them.

  • Compliance audits that confirm the policy exists but not whether it is lived in practice.

  • Consultancy reviews and culture audits that cannot be independently verified or benchmarked.

  • Internal scorecards that grade the organisation against its own ambitions rather than a global standard.

What the Assessment is

The Assessment is a structured, independent evaluation of an organisation’s patient experience capability, carried out by ICXI-certified assessors against the International Standard for Patient Experience. It produces a Maturity Rating, a full diagnostic report, and — where the bar is met — formal ICXI certification and eligibility to enter the Experience Excellence Awards.

Three Things Make It Different

Independent

Delivered by ICXI — a neutral, global standards body. No consultancy upsell. No vendor agenda. The rating is the rating.

Evidence-Based

Every score is anchored to observable evidence — clinical governance records, patient voice data, complaint patterns, policy-in-practice — reviewed by qualified assessors. Opinion is not enough.

Developmental

Every organisation leaves with a complete maturity report and a prioritised roadmap. The certificate is the recognition; the diagnostic is the asset.

Maturity model

The maturity model at a glance

Every organisation is placed on a four-level scale, from Reactive to world-class Proactive.

Level 01

Reactive

Activity is fragmented, ownership is unclear, and the organisation responds to complaints or events rather than managing the experience by design.

Level 02

Aware

The experience is recognised as a priority and investment is being made, but capability is uneven across pillars and not yet producing sustained outcomes.

Level 03

Structured

Capability is formally defined, governed, and measured. Performance is consistent, with clear ownership and evidence of year-on-year improvement.

Level 04

Proactive

World-class. Capability is embedded, continuously improving, and a recognised source of competitive advantage. Eligible for top-tier EEI Awards categories.

What we assess — the 12 Pillars of PX Excellence

Your organisation is evaluated across twelve dimensions that together define a mature patient experience capability. Each pillar is scored against published criteria, with evidence requirements, so that results are comparable across services, settings, geographies, and time.

01

Vision & Integrity

Whether PX governance is explicit, executive-owned, and protected under clinical and commercial pressure — rather than assumed, distributed, or symbolic.

02

Respect & Compassion

The consistency with which patients, families, and carers are treated with dignity, warmth, and humanity across every contact and every service.

03

Voice & Partnership

How systematically patient, family, and community voice is captured, heard, and translated into design and decisions — as partnership, not consultation.

04

Insights & Evidence

The rigour with which experience data, complaints, outcomes, and lived experience are combined to direct improvement — rather than filed for reporting.

05

People & Culture

Whether the staff experience — leadership, support, workload, recognition — is intentionally designed to produce the compassionate care the organisation promises.

06

Fairness & Belonging

Equity of access, treatment, and outcome across every population the service exists to serve — evidenced by data, policy, and patient perception.

07

Clarity & Trust

The transparency, honesty, and clarity of communication patients receive — across information, decisions, errors, and uncertainty.

08

Innovation & Inclusion

The capability to design and trial new services, pathways, and partnerships that genuinely include the voices of those they are intended to serve.

09

Space & Safety

The quality of the physical, emotional, and psychological environment in which care is delivered — and the safeguards that protect it.

10

Learning & Excellence

How systematically the organisation learns from what patients experience — celebrated, survived, or suffered — and turns that learning into better care.

11

Connection & Journey

End-to-end ownership of the patient journey across services, systems, and handovers — so continuity, not fragmentation, is the norm.

12

Access & Efficiency

Whether patients can reach care when they need it, with effort proportionate to need — and whether efficiency enhances rather than degrades experience.

Each carries ten assessment criteria — 120 evidence-based judgements behind every rating we issue.

How the Assessment works

A four-stage process.

1

Scoping & readiness

A confidential working session with your executive sponsor (typically CEO, Chief Nurse, Medical Director, or PX lead) to agree scope, stakeholders, evidence sources, and timeline.

2

Evidence gathering

Your ICXI assessment team collects documentary evidence, conducts structured interviews and focus groups across leadership, clinical staff, and patient representatives, and reviews experience, complaints, safety, and outcome data.

3

Scoring & calibration

Findings are scored against all 120 criteria. A second assessor calibrates the rating to protect objectivity and ensure global comparability of the result.

4

Report, rating & roadmap

You receive a full maturity report, your pillar-by-pillar scores, your overall Maturity Rating (Reactive → Proactive), and a prioritised AI Insights improvement roadmap.

What you receive

Executive summary report

A board-ready narrative of your current maturity, strengths, vulnerabilities, and strategic priorities.

Full diagnostic report

Findings across all 120 criteria, with supporting evidence citations and assessor commentary.

Maturity rating & certificate

Your formal ICXI Maturity Rating — Reactive, Aware, Structured, or Proactive — with an ICXI-issued certificate where the standard is met.

Prioritised improvement roadmap

A sequenced 12- to 24-month, AI-driven roadmap of the highest-leverage interventions, owned by pillar.

Executive debrief

A debrief for your leadership team, including Q&A with the lead assessor where conducted externally.

EEI Awards eligibility

Where your rating qualifies, automatic eligibility to enter the Experience Excellence Awards at the appropriate tier — no separate submission required.

From Assessment to Award

The Assessment is the only route into the Experience Excellence Awards. Every organisation recognised on an EEI Awards stage has been independently assessed against the same international framework — not judged on the persuasiveness of an entry form. No submission writing. Your Assessment evidence is your entry.

CERTIFIED

Reach the Structured maturity bar.

Earn ICXI certification and the right to display the PX certification mark. Enter the Experience Excellence Awards at regional level.

ADVANCED

Reach Proactive in one or more pillars.

Qualify for category awards — e.g. Best Patient Voice & Partnership, Best Compassionate Care, Best Patient Journey, Best Equity & Inclusion in Care — at the annual EEI Awards ceremony.

WORLD-CLASS

Reach Proactive across the majority of pillars.

Become a candidate for the flagship Patient Experience Organisation of the Year award and join ICXI’s global Council of Excellence.

The business case — what clients tell us they gain

An independent answer to the board’s question

“Is our investment actually producing capability?” — answered with evidence, not opinion.

A shared language across leadership

Twelve pillars and four maturity levels give every executive the same map.

A credible external benchmark

ICXI is used across 40+ countries. Your score is comparable, not cosmetic.

A ready-made improvement plan

The roadmap is prioritised, sequenced, and costed in capability terms — not consultant hours.

A defensible recognition asset

EEI Awards recognition is backed by an audit trail that matters to customers, employees, and regulators.

Year-on-year progress you can prove

Re-assessment produces a like-for-like trajectory the organisation can stand behind — benchmarking in action.

“Over a decade chairing the UK and European Business Awards taught me a simple truth: the recognition that lasts is the recognition you can defend. Every customer, every employee, every regulator who looks at our award winners sees the same evidence trail. Enter it for the diagnostic. Pursue the Award for the recognition. Do both because it is the most rigorous thing in the market.”

MR PHILIP FORREST — President, ICXI & Experience Excellence Awards

Frequently asked questions

Most organisations complete the end-to-end Assessment within 1-2 days from scoping to executive debrief. A fast-track option is available for organisations with entry deadlines.

Yes to both. Findings are confidential to your executive sponsor, and all patient and staff focus groups and interviews follow ICXI’s published anonymity and safeguarding protocols. You decide whether to publicise your rating and whether to enter the Awards.

It complements rather than replaces them. Regulatory reviews typically examine compliance; the PX Assessment examines capability. Many organisations use the Assessment to prepare for, or evidence beyond, statutory inspection.

Your survey data is one evidence source among many. The Assessment diagnoses the capability that produces those scores — so you can act on causes, not just symptoms.

A lead assessor certified by ICXI, supported by a calibration assessor. Both are senior PX and healthcare practitioners bound by ICXI’s independence and conflict-of-interest rules.

No. The Assessment is designed to diagnose where you are — not where you wish you were. Organisations at every maturity level find the process valuable, including those still at the Reactive stage.

Ready to measure what actually matters?

Request a confidential scoping conversation with an ICXI assessor. No commitment, no cost, no consultancy pitch — just an honest discussion of whether the Assessment is right for your organisation.