Petty disputes central to NHS complaints
Summary
An annual review of how the National Health Service (NHS) deals with complaints found that the most straightforward of matters are not being managed at a local level.
In the report 'Listening and Learning: the Ombudsman's Review of Complaint Handling by the NHS in England 2010-22’ (HC 1522), the Health Ombudsman resolved 15,186 complaints that were often a result of poor responses by NHS staff.
The review features a number of real-life case studies that illustrate how minor disputes over unanswered telephones or mix-ups over appointments can end up with the Ombudsman because of knee-jerk responses by NHS staff and poor complaint handling.
While such minute matters may seem insignificant alongside complex clinical judgments and treatment, they contribute to a patient's overall experience of NHS care.
Two particular themes stand out in this review:
- Poor communication - one of the most common reasons for complaints in the last year - can have a serious, direct impact on patients' care and can unnecessarily exclude their families from a full awareness of the patient's condition or prognosis.
- Failure to resolve disagreements between patients and their GP in a small but increasing number of cases has led to their removal from the GP's patient list - often without the required warning or the opportunity for both sides to talk about what happened.
As GPs prepare to take on greater responsibility for commissioning patient services, this report provides an early warning that some are failing to handle even the most basic complaints appropriately.
The escalation of such small, everyday incidents represents a hidden cost, adding to the burden on clinical practitioners and taking up time for health service managers, while causing added difficulty for people struggling with illness or caring responsibilities.
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