Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a scale for measuring perceived service quality for public hospitals from the user's (patient's) perspective. The objective is to measure perceived service quality of public hospitals. Design/methodology/approach – Standard scale development research procedure recommended by experts was followed. First, literature review of studies to measure service quality was undertaken. Later, Delphi method (two iterations) was used. Interviews were conducted of experts and customers for understanding and generating items for perceived service quality for public hospitals. A survey was then undertaken first for development of the scale and later for validation purpose. Findings – A reliable and valid scale called public hospital service quality (PubHosQual) is developed to measure the five dimensions of hospital service quality: admission, medical service, overall service, discharge process, and social responsibility. Research limitations/implications – Since, this study was conducted in India only, the generalizability of the PubHosQual scale has to be tested in other countries. Practical implications – The proposed scale PubHosQual in this study could be used as a diagnostic tool to identity areas where specific improvements are needed, and to pinpoint aspects of the hospital's services that require modification. The paper is an attempt to develop an instrument to incorporate the “voice of the customer.” Originality/value – Most relevant studies about perceived service quality for public hospitals either do not have stable factor structure or are relying on generic SERVQUAL scale to measure service quality. The new scale fills the gap of absence of a validated scale to measure perceived service quality for public hospitals.