We are the last resort for complaints about the NHS. We listen to individual complaints and, where things have gone wrong, help to get them put right. We see the NHS through the eyes of individual patients who have received poor care or treatment and who have been unable to get things put right through any other means. As the changes in the NHS take shape, our caseload suggests that embedding good complaint handling will be essential to avoid the risk of patient complaints going unheard.
People who complain to us often say that they want to make sure that no-one else experiences the same poor care or treatment that they have. Sometimes the substance of their complaint highlights patient safety concerns. For others, poor service from the NHS can be at best inconvenient or, at worst, devastating, especially if people are unwell or struggling to take care of others. Our work gives them a voice and this report tells some of their stories.
Time and again, poor communication with patients and their families is at the core of what goes wrong. Last year, we received 50% more complaints from people who felt that the NHS had not acknowledged mistakes in care. We received more complaints from people who felt they had not received a clear or adequate explanation in response to their complaints, and more complaints about inadequate remedies, including apologies. This report tells the story of the surgeon who told a patient he was behaving like a baby and quotes a letter sent from the NHS to a bereaved daughter, which said, ‘Death is rarely an ideal situation for anyone.’ When patients go unheard the result is careless communication, insincere apologies and unclear explanations.
Changing this requires leadership and embedding good complaint handling at the heart of the new NHS. In future, GP-led Clinical Commissioning Groups will be the main commissioners of NHS services. Together with the NHS Commissioning Board, they will need to ensure that the services they commission, whether from NHS or independent providers, follow our Principles of Good Complaint Handling. This report highlights the standards providers must work towards.
Of concern too is the increase in complaints to us about unfair removal of patients from GP lists, despite our focus on this last year. There needs to be a clear shift in the attitude and practice of some GPs towards complaints.
Good complaint handling means listening to patients. Doing so will help deliver the high-quality, patient-centred care that the NHS is committed to. In this report we highlight some of the ways we will be working with the new NHS to help achieve this. We look forward to working with NHS leaders, commissioners, regulators and providers to share information and help them learn from mistakes.
Dame Julie Mellor, DBE
Health Service Ombudsman
October 2012