How we work
This report details the complaint handling performance of the NHS in England in 2010-11. We provide an overall snapshot of how we worked to resolve health complaints last year, and a summary of the standards we set for the NHS. You can read in detail in our statistics section about the reasons for complaints to us, the breakdown of complaints by type of body and English region, and the health bodies that generated most complaints to us last year.
The role of the Health Service Ombudsman is to consider complaints that the NHS in England has not acted properly or fairly or has provided a poor service.
We judge NHS performance against the standards for good administration and complaint handling set out in full in the Ombudsman’s Principles. Last year, we resolved a total of 15,186 complaints about the NHS in England.
Helping people complain
We expect health bodies to publish clear and complete information about how to complain, and how and when to take complaints further.
On 9,547 occasions last year, we referred the complainant back to the health body because they had not completed the NHS complaints procedure. A total of 325 complaints about the NHS were about issues outside of our remit.
Complaints about the NHS must be made to us in writing. On 1,137 occasions last year, the complainant withdrew their complaint or did not put it in writing.
Putting things right
Health bodies should put mistakes right quickly and effectively. They should acknowledge mistakes and apologise where appropriate.
On 3,339 occasions last year we were able to reassure the complainant that the NHS had already put things right or that there was no case to answer.
Where things have gone wrong, we ask the health body to apologise and put things right quickly and effectively, without the need for a formal investigation. Last year, 230 health complaints were resolved this way, and a further 257 complaints were resolved when we provided the complainant with an explanation about what had happened.
Learning from complaints
Lessons learnt from complaints should be used to improve public services. Where possible, the complainant should be returned to the position they would have been in if the circumstances leading to the complaint had not occurred.
We accepted 351 complaints for formal investigation and reported on 349 complaints investigated. If a complaint is upheld or partly upheld, we recommend actions for the body in question to take to put things right and to learn from the complaint. Last year, we upheld or partly upheld 79 per cent of health complaints and over 99 per cent of our recommendations for action were accepted.
Our recommendations were not accepted in just one case. Following the publication of our investigation report, which was laid before Parliament, the dentist in question accepted our recommendations. As a result, the current compliance rate with our recommendations is 100 per cent.
