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The NHS does need to make better use of qualitative data, although progress is being made already - PatientOpinion's online feedback service has gathered 40,490 patient stories which have led to 299 documented service changes.

Technology is improving, which should make the process cheaper, quicker and more powerful. Look at what Fizzback are doing with Natural Language Processing to extract sentiment from customer feedback: http://www.fizzback.com/?page_id=28

The interesting thing about Fizzback is how they (and their private-sector customers) prioritise swift action to retain customers based on individual feedback. If true patient choice takes off, NHS services won't be able to afford not to take 'customer' retention seriously.

Ultimately, the technology can allow pro-active feedback gathering: rather than direct people to NHS Choices or its replacement, a hospital could actively monitor Twitter, Facebook etc for people discussing their services.