The Health Services Ombudsman’s report has revealed that 175,000 written complaints were received between 2013 and 2014, up from 162,000 in the previous year.
This figure means that an estimated 3,300 written complaints were submitted every week of the year, equivalent to around 479 every day.
A total of 18,870 enquiries about the NHS were received, the report confirmed, with 8,178 of these regarding acute trusts.
Amongst the most common complaints were the level of clinical care and treatment received and failures in diagnosis, with delays in diagnosis, failure to diagnose a medical condition and misdiagnosis all cited.
Interestingly, complaints regarding the non-medical aspects of patient care remained high too. Patients cited poor communication (such as the quality of the communication and the accuracy of the information received) in their complaints as well as the poor attitude of staff (including staff behaviours and communication styles).
Ambulance crews (including paramedics) saw a 28.5% increase in written complaints compared to the previous year, with a total of 5,700 complaints submitted. The service area seeing the highest number of complaints however was ‘inpatient hospital acute services’, with a total of 34,400 complaints recorded.
In her response to the figures, the Ombudsman, Dame Julie Mellor, DBE, emphasised the importance of adopting a more personalised approach to patient care which welcomes feedback.
However, whilst this is a strategy which should undoubtedly be adopted in the long-term, in the short-term these figures raise serious cause for concern. Recent headlines have detailed the extreme levels of demand being placed on medical staff and support staff and hospitals across the country have failed to meet waiting time targets in recent months. This will no doubt all be contributing to the recorded rise in complaints however a recent report conducted by NHS consumer watchdog Healthwatch England suggested that one in three hospitals do not take any action when they receive complaints from visitors.
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