RECORDING booths feature on TV’s The X Factor for contestants to vent their anger after being voted off the show, and on Big Brother so that housemates can gossip about one another.

Now one has been set up in an Oxford hospital for patients to let staff know what they think about the quality of their treatment.

The Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, in Headington, set up the booth in its main atrium on Thursday, to find out how well patients felt they were being treated, with regard to privacy, dignity and respect.

Patients are invited into the booth and asked to sit in front of a screen.

They are then given the choice of whether they wanted to be filmed or just have their voice recorded, and asked a series of questions by an automated voice, including what they felt was best about their treatment and what areas they felt could be improved.

It is hoped the footage will provide nursing teams with helpful suggestions on making patients’ experiences better.

Patient Tracy Lucas was one of the first to use the booth.

The 45-year-old was left wheelchair-bound when she was hit by a lorry 21 years ago and has been treated by specialists at the NOC for the past few months as they rebuild parts of her legs.

She likened it to the booth used by contestants in the The X Factor, and said: “I think it’s a very good idea.

“I used the booth as a way of saying a big thank you to staff. When they asked me what could be improved, I couldn’t think of anything.”

Mrs Lucas was joined by staff nurse Georgina Gibbs, from Headington, and NOC chairman Joanna Foster.

Ms Foster, who was a patient at the NOC herself when she underwent recent surgery, said the booth was part of a wider campaign by the NHS to promote privacy, dignity and respect at all hospitals.

She said: “We hope to use the recordings in staff training.

“In hospital you need to feel secure, and that you’ll be treated with respect and dignity.

“We want to get simple things right, such as what people would like to be called.

“I think of my mother, and if someone had called her ‘darling’, for example, she would not have liked it all. These things are very important.”

awilliams@oxfordmail.co.uk