The outcomes we secured through our investigations included apologies, compensation and securing changes to prevent the same problems occurring again.

We upheld or partly upheld 276 of the 349 complaints we reported on. This was 79 per cent, compared to 63 per cent in 2009-10.

We made 682 recommendations following our investigations, compared to 202 recommendations in 2009-10. Of the recommendations we made in 2010-11, 259 were for an apology. We are securing increased financial compensation for complainants – we made 167 such recommendations, totalling £463,244.

Where the problems we have found are systemic, rather than a one off, we have recommended that the health body produces an action plan to show how it has learnt lessons. We made 227 such recommendations and informed CQC and Monitor of the relevant cases so that, as regulators, they could follow them up.

Levels of acceptance of our recommendations remain very high – with 99 per cent of recommendations accepted last year. In the one case where our recommendations were not accepted, we laid our investigation report before Parliament and the practitioner has since complied with our recommendations.

It is important that health bodies put things right promptly and we are focusing on the speed of compliance with our recommendations.

3. Where a complaint is resolved, there may be more than one outcome, for example, an apology and a compensation payment. This is why the total number of outcomes is greater than the number of complaints resolved by intervention or through investigation.