Report reveals complaints about Cumbrian NHS Trust

Poor communication, treatment and errors in diagnosis have once again topped the list of causes of hospital complaints investigated by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

In a large organisation like Wigan’s hospital trust these are very small numbers.

In 2014-15 it upheld 36% of the cases it investigated about the NHS and 44% about acute trusts.

The Isle of Wight NHS Trust has seen a drop in the number of complaints made about it to the Ombudsman, placing it now in third position, rather than leading the scoreboard.

Ms Hills said: “When we do receive complaints, they are thoroughly investigated”.

Non-medical aspects of patient care are cited as a factor in nearly half of all complaints investigated by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

That is a rise of three complaints from the 2013/14 financial year.

Latest figures show that North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT), which runs Southmead and Frenchay hospitals, got 102 complaints, an increase from 92 the year before.

Ombudsman Julie Mellor said: “We are publishing this data to help trusts identify problems and take action to ensure trust in the system remains high”.

A Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust spokesman said it welcomed comments from patients as it helped to improve services.

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman revealed in a report published today it received 92 complaints about Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust (CHUFT) in 2014-15, compared to 66 the previous year.

“We endeavour to ensure all complaints are fully resolved with the complainant and encourage people to contact the ombudsman if they are dissatisfied with our response”. We believe we are on the right track with our complaint handing process.

The number of enquiries accepted per 100,000 clinical episodes was 10.99, up from 1.91. This is in keeping with the national average of 6.2. Of these enquiries, 8,853 were about acute trusts in 2014-15, compared to 8,178 in 2013-14.

“We really value the opportunity to work with patients, their families and carers and the wider community to bring about improvements to our services and complaints are just one way in which we can work in partnership with them to do this”. During 2014/15, the PHSO report states that they did not uphold eight cases and that one was partially upheld.

In 2014-15, the service received 21,371 inquiries about the NHS, compared to 18,870 in 2013-14.

Six were rejected and the remainder were still under investigation at the end of the period in question.

“This provides reassurance that the trust is responding to the majority of formal complaints through local resolution”.