Call to improve complaints response

One in five NHS complaints sent for independent review are about treatment or a wrong diagnosis, a report has revealed. People who complain to an NHS trust about care but who are unhappy with the response can ask for a review by the Healthcare Commission.

In 2007/08, the Commission reviewed 7,827 of these complaints plus 1,112 unresolved from the previous year...

Of the total number of complaints, the Commission said almost 50% were upheld or were sent back to the trust for further work because the initial response was not good enough.

"This shows that the NHS still has much room for improvement in how it deals with complaints locally," the Commission said in its report, which focused on the NHS in England.

Right, that'll fix it. Let's set up a commission to investigate whether complaints are being handled correctly. Trying to fix the underlying system that gives rise to so many complaints is probably a bit too much to ask.

Source: The Metro