Latest NHS Complaints Figures Published, UK

Main Category: Public Health
Also Included In: Litigation / Medical Malpractice
Article Date: 15 Nov 2007 - 6:00 PDT

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Latest figures on written complaints against NHS organisations are published today by the Information Centre for health and social care. The figures show that there has been a decrease of four per cent in the number of written complaints about hospital and community health services from 95,047 in 2005-06 to 90,801 in 2006-07. This is the lowest number of complaints since figures peaked 95,734 in 2000-01.

The report also shows that between 1 April 2006 and 31 August 2006, 75% of complaints against hospital and community health services (HCHS) were concluded within the 20 working days time limit. This is unchanged from 2004-05 and 2005-06, but prior to that figures varied between 56% and 69%. Since the changes in the Local Resolution time limit were introduced, 77% of complaints were concluded within 25 working days between 1 September 2006 and 31 March 2007.

Other key findings from the report are that:

Most complaints were against Medical staff (42 per cent), followed by Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting staff (22 per cent) followed by Trust Administrative staff (10 per cent).

For the subject area that the complaint covers, the highest proportion of written complaints was on All aspects of clinical treatment (38 per cent) followed by Attitude of staff (12 per cent), Outpatient Appointments, delay / cancellation (11 per cent), and Communication / information to patients (10 per cent). These proportions are similar to 2005-06.

The report also looked at complaints against family health services and found that there has been a decrease of two per cent in the number of written complaints about family health services from 43,349 in 2005-06 to 42,592 in 2006-07. This represents little change over the last five years, during which the number of complaints have remained around 43,000.

Tim Straughan, Acting Chief Executive of the IC said : "Today's report shows that overall, fewer formal written complaints are being received. However, there are still some areas where complaints are on the increase and nearly a quarter of all complaints are not resolved within the time limits set by Government. Today's report is important at both the local and national level. Locally, NHS organisations can use the information to help plan and improve their services and nationally, the data helps monitor patient satisfaction across the whole NHS."

The full report is here.

Notes:

The Information Centre (The IC) is England's authoritative, independent source of health and social care information. It works with more than 300 health and social care providers nationwide to provide the facts and figures that help the NHS and social services run effectively. Its role is to collect data, analyse it and convert it into useful information which helps providers improve their services and supports academics, researcher, regulators and policymakers in their work.

The IC also produces a wide range of statistical publications each year across a number of areas including: primary care, health and lifestyles, screening, hospital care, population and geography, social care and workforce and pay statistics.

The NHS complaints procedure is the statutorily based mechanism for dealing with complaints about NHS care and treatment and all NHS organisations in England are required to operate the procedure. This survey collects data from all NHS organisations, and captures complaints about NHS Direct and Walk-in Centres. The data have been published annually since 1997-98. This annual collection is a count of written complaints made by (or on behalf of) patients, received between 1 April 2006 and 31 March 2007.

The Department of Health revised the NHS complaints procedures for hospital and community health services by extending the target for resolving complaints from 20 to 25 working days. This change came into force on 1 September 2006 and consequently, the Local Resolution time limit for complaints collected from 1 April 2006 to 31 August 2006 was 20 working days and from 1 September 2006 to 31 March it was 25 working days.

http://www.ic.nhs.uk