WIREDGOV

A report published today has revealed that the top three reasons for hospital complaints investigated by the Ombudsman Service were poor communication, errors in diagnosis - including delays in diagnosis, misdiagnosis and failure to diagnose - and poor treatment. Other reasons for complaints in this period were staff attitude, no apology when things go wrong and unnecessary delay in treatment.

The report published by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman outlines how many complaints it has investigated for each of England's 156 hospital trusts and the decisions we made on these complaints, in 2013-14 and the first half of this financial year.

For the first time ever the Ombudsman Service has published the number of enquiries and complaints it has investigated for each of England's hospital trusts, alongside the number of written complaints the trust received locally published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre. This shows the number of complaints not resolved locally by the trust, which then go onto to be investigated by the Ombudsman Service. The report shows that some trusts are 15 times more likely to have a complaint about them investigated by the Ombudsman Service.

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is the final stage in the complaints process after people have complained to the NHS. It received 12,353 enquiries from complainants about hospital trusts over the 18 month period covered in the report.

Over these 18 months we accepted 2,497 complaints about acute trusts for investigation. We upheld 44% of complaints about acute trusts over these 18 months.

Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Julie Mellor said:

'There are lots of reasons why numbers of complaints vary between hospitals and could be due to the size of the organisation or types of patients it serves, for example. We are publishing this data today because every complaint presents an opportunity to improve services.

'We know that poor communication, errors with diagnosis and poor care and treatment are the most common reasons why people complain to us about their hospital treatment. Other common reasons for complaints are staff attitude, no apology when things go wrong and unnecessary delay in treatment.

'We hope NHS leaders use the data in this report to identify themes, and recurring problems in order to understand what they have done well and how they can improve their complaint handling.'

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman investigates complaints that individuals have been treated unfairly or have received a poor service from the NHS in England. We do this fairly and without taking sides. We make final adjudications on complaints and where we uphold complaints we make recommendations for remedy. If we find big or repeated issues, we work with others to develop system wide solutions and share our work with Parliament so they hold the providers of public services to account.

The information contained within this report is not designed to rank trusts on the basis of their complaints information or assess the performance of individual trusts when it comes to handling complaints.

The report reveals a wide variation between trusts, in how they handle complaints, even when you account for their size. There is a big correlation between the level of activity at the trust and the number of complaints the Ombudsman Service investigates about the trust. The report compares the number of complaints the Ombudsman Service investigates to the size of each trust. The size of the trust is determined by the number of 'clinical incidents' such as outpatient appointments, elective surgery and emergency admissions the trust has carried out. This shows how likely a trust is to receive a complaint about its service. The analysis in the report reveals that some trusts are 11 times more likely to be investigated by the Ombudsman Service.

Each trust will have its own reasons for its complaint data. So if for example a trust has a high number of complaints and not many get referred to the Ombudsman Service, it could mean that the trust resolves complaints well at a local level. Or for example, it could be because trusts are not signposting patients to the Ombudsman Service when they are not satisfied with the way their complaint has been handled by the NHS. All patients have the right to take their complaint to the Ombudsman Service if they are not satisfied with the way the complaint has been dealt with by the NHS.
The Ombudsman Service received 18,870 enquiries about NHS organisations in 2013-14. Just under half of these – 8,178 – were about acute trusts which manage hospitals in England.

Find the report 'Complaints about acute trusts 2013-14 and Q1, Q2 2014-15' here

Notes to editors

1. We receive about 27,000 enquiries a year. Most of these enquiries are about how to complain about service providers locally. Of the 27,000 enquiries we receive a year about 7,000 of these are taken forward for assessment and investigate about 4,000 of these. We changed our approach last year and now investigate thousands rather than hundreds of cases so more people get an impartial investigation and a final decision on their complaint.
2. In 2013-14 the Ombudsman Service received 8,178 enquiries about acute trusts and accepted 1,637 complaints about acute trusts for investigation and completed 855 investigations in 2013-14 about acute trusts.
3. The Ombudsman Service received 7,503 enquiries about acute trusts in 2012-13 and 8,178 in 2013/14, an increase of 9%.
4. In the first six months of this financial year, 2014-15, the Ombudsman Service received 4,175 enquiries about acute trusts. Over this period 860 complaints were accepted for investigation and 868 investigations were completed. A total of 365 of these complaints were upheld following investigation.
5. The average uphold rate across individual acute trusts was 44% in 2013-14 and so far this year the average uphold rate is 42%.
6. In 2013-14 there were 160 acute trusts in England and 156 in 2014-15.
7. All patients have the right to take their complaint to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman if they are not satisfied with the way their complaint has been dealt with by the NHS, under the NHS Constitution.
8. All NHS organisations are under a statutory obligation to record the formal complaints they receive, which the Health and Social Care Information Centre publish annually.
9. The NHS recorded 174,872 written complaints in 2013-14 compared to 162,019 in the previous year. In 2013-14 the Ombudsman Service received just over one enquiry relating to a health care provider for every 10 written complaints recorded by the NHS.
10. The report gives the number of enquiries the Ombudsman Service has received for every 10,000 'clinical incidents' at the trust and the number of investigations carried out by the Ombudsman Service per 100,000 clinical incidents. This shows the likelihood of a trust having a complaint investigated by the Ombudsman Service.
11. Last week a blueprint for what good complaint handling should look like across health and social care was published by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, the Local Government Ombudsman and Healthwatch. My expectations for raising concerns and complaints outlines a 'Vision' for great complaint handling. Developed by patients and service users it shows what they would expect when they raise a concern or complaint in health and social care. The Vision, based on workshops with more than 100 service users and tested with over 40 organisations, is made up of 'I statements', which describes service users' ideal complaints journey and what patients and service users might say if their experience of making a complaint is a good one.

Contact: Marina Soteriou

Phone: 0300 061 4996