Evidence proves that ‘most health leaflets are difficult to read’ – But help is on the way

A report by Healthwatch Bucks found that many health leaflets and documents are difficult for people to understand. In fact, 43% of adults find it hard to understand health information. Healthwatch Bucks wanted to find out why.

Healthwatch Bucks looked at 15 different health and social care leaflets and documents. Then they tested the documents with the Flesch-Kincaid test, which tests how difficult a document is to read. They found that most of the documents were difficult to read and that only one was written in plain English. The main writing issues were complex sentences, long sentences, and impersonal wording. Also, lots of organisations assumed people knew things that aren’t common knowledge.

The report gives examples on how difficult sentences could be reworded to make them easier to read. For example, a leaflet said: “If you feel your concerns have not been resolved satisfactorily, will (Ed. We’ll?) guide you through [our] complaints process and provide you with information about external independent services who can assist you if you wish to make a formal complaint.” The report suggests: “If we can’t help sort things out, we can tell you how else to complain.”

Plain English

Thalia Jervis, Chief Executive at Healthwatch Bucks, said: “Patients can only get involved if they can understand the information they get. This report will help make that happen.”

Healthwatch Bucks recommends that leaflets aimed at patients should be written in plain English. Also, formal documents that are available to the public should contain a plain English easy-read summary.

Amarjit Kaur, Head of Engagement and Involvement at Bucks Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs Adult community healthcare, Outpatient services and Health visitors out of Thame Community Hospital, said: “Making sure all our patients can understand the information we give is so important. We’re thankful for this reminder from Healthwatch Bucks that medical leaflets can often be complicated. The extra effort to ensure they can be read easily is worth it. We will be recommending that staff use the Flesch-Kincaid test to help simplify patient documents and will be offering training to our new patient information panel, which will be set up soon. We will also be developing a new template for our patient leaflets to increase their readability.”

The full report can be found on Healthwatch Bucks website. If you have any feedback for health and social care services, you can get in touch with Healthwatch Bucks at info@healthwatchbucks.co.uk

Did you know?

• 43% of adults (aged 18-65) do not have good enough literacy skills to routinely
  understand health information (Rowlands, et al., In progress)
• around 5 million adults in England wouldn’t pass an English GCSE and have
  literacy levels at or below those expected of an 11-year-old (Okolosie, 2016)
• something like 7 million adults can’t read or understand simple instructions or labels
  such as on medicine bottles (Patient Information Forum, 2016)
•  half the population would be unlikely to understand cancer information brochures
  routinely used in hospital settings (Manning & Dickens, 2016)
• average reading age of the UK population is 9 years old
• The Sun is written for people with a reading age of 8
• The Guardian is written for people with a reading age of 14
• most adults in England are in the 11-14-year-old reading age group (Health Education
  England, 2017).
• NHS Direct (now NHS Choices), which is certified under the NHS England Information
  Standard, has a reading age of 10(Oxford Brookes University, 2016