Statistical Publication Notice

NHS Complaints

 

"An organisation that truly welcomes, values and uses complaints to inspire and

guide improvement will be more successful than one who does not"

                               Professor Alice Brown, Scottish Public Services Ombudsman

 

The NHS Complaints system can be a powerful force for making things better, both for individual complainants and for the wider NHS, thus creating a culture of learning from mistakes and putting things right - a key objective for the NHS in Scotland.

Complaints about the NHS are a valuable way of identifying issues in the service where change is needed.  Acknowledging these issues and taking steps to rectify any problems is vital to create an open and honest NHS.   Complaints should be welcomed with a positive attitude and valued as feedback on service performance, driven by the search for improvement in the organisation and not the appointment of blame.

The complaints system requires for the whole organisation to value and take ownership of complaints received.  Front-line staff, managers and executive officers all need to have defined responsibilities in welcoming and learning from complaints, in order to make a complaints management process truly effective.  It is crucial that complaints intelligence feeds directly back into service improvements.

Patients or perhaps a relative on behalf of a patient can make a complaint if they feel dissatisfied with any aspect of their episode of care or other factors such as facilities or the place they are seen in.  There is an incredibly wide variation in the type of contacts that patients have with the NHS - such as treatment as an Inpatient, Outpatient, A&E attendance, donation of blood or transportation by ambulance, to name but a few.  Each year, for example there are approximately 4.3m outpatient attendances and over 2m ambulance transportations in NHS Scotland.

Complaints received by the NHS are a relatively rare occurrence. In 2006/07, there were 7,347 complaints received about Hospital & Community Services - however putting this into context with the number of contacts with the NHS, this results in approximately 4 complaints per 10,000 patient contacts for Scotland.  For Family Health Services, there were 2,984 complaints received in 2006/07, resulting in approximately 2 complaints per 10,000 GP consultations.

The NHS complaints procedure was revised with effect from 1 April 2005.   The most noticeable change is the removal of the Independent Review stage.  This was removed to enable a faster process and to allow the introduction of independent scrutiny at an earlier point.  This is provided by the Scottish Public Service Ombudsman.  The new system also makes provision for those wishing to complain about their GP without initially having to contact their GP.  In these circumstances, they may contact their Health Board complaints officer.  These changes are in line with the recommendations made in the research carried out in 1999 by System 3 Research and York Health Economics Consortium. 

KEY POINTS (3 - 5)

• The number of complaints for Hospital and Community Services has continued to fall over the past 4 years, with 7,347 complaints received in 2006/07;

• 58.6% of complaints were dealt within the national target of 20 working days on 2006/07;

• Nearly a third of all issues raised were staffing issues, and a quarter of issues raised related to treatment.  In 2006/07, 11% of issues raised were regarding waiting times - note that this proportion has fallen over the last four years, where in 2003/04, 18% of all issues raised were regarding waiting times;

• New complaints data has been collected in 2006/07 to include all of the Special Health Boards; National & Support organisations and the Scottish Health Council;

• The number of complaints for Family Health Services was 2,984 in 2006/07. This is an increase in the number of complaints when compared to 2005/06 (2,791 complaints received), however, this is still a decrease when compared to 2003/04 and 2004/05 when there were 3,301 and 3,048 complaints respectively.  

INTERPRETATION (any issues that readers should be aware of)

No trend data is available for the Scottish Health Council and the Special Health Boards and National and Support organisations that are listed below.   Complaints data has only started to be submitted to ISD for analysis in 2006/07.

• The National Waiting Times Centre (previously known as the Golden Jubilee National Hospital);
• NHS Education for Scotland (NES);
• NHS Health Scotland;
• NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (QIS);
• NHS National Services Scotland (NSS);

Interpreting the complaint numbers for Highland and Greater Glasgow and Clyde  Health Boards must be treated with caution. Comparisons should not be made between 2005/06 and 2006/07 for these Health Boards, as they absorbed the complaints for Argyll and Clyde Health Board, which was dissolved on the 1^st April 2006.

The revision to the complaints process in 2005 has removed some of the barriers which may have stopped some people complaining about the NHS in previous years.   For instance, if a complaint is being made regarding a General Practictioner (GP), then the complainant can now contact the NHS Board Compliants Officer, or go to Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) instead of initially contacting their GP.   This new process can be contributing the the increase of complaints in Family Health Services in 2006/07.

DETAILED FINDINGS / COMMENTARY

• After a gradual rise in the number of complaints received about Hospital and Community Services from 1999/00, this number has continued to fall over the last 4 years (8,255 in 2003/04; 8,095 in 2004/05; 7,940 in 2005/06 and 7,347 in 2006/07 - there was a decrease of 2% each year from 2003/04 to 2005/06, however, the number of complaints received in 2006/07 has decreased by 7% when compared to 2005/06.

• The percentage of complaints acknowledged within the national target timescale of 3 working days from receipt has remained at 93% when compared to 2005/06.

• The speed of dealing with these complaints within the national target of 20 working days has decreased to 58.6%, compared with 61.7% in 2005/06.  Public holidays have been taken into account when response times have been calculated.

• The median time taken to deal with complaints was 19 working days in 2006/07. 

• Nearly a third of all issues raised were staffing issues (33%), a quarter related to treatment (27%) and 11% related to waiting times - note that the proportion of issues raised relating to waiting times has fallen over the last three years (in 2003/04, 18% of all issues raised were regarding waiting times).

• Within the broad category of 'staff' issues, the attitude/behaviour of staff(14.5% of all issues raised) and aspects of written and oral communication (14.5%) were the most common issues raised.

• There was little change in the proportions of complaints being upheld, partly upheld and not upheld.  In 2006/07, 24.6% of complaints were fully upheld, 38.7% were partially upheld and 36.3% were not upheld. 

• The number of complaints for Family Health Services in 2006/07 is 2,984.    Although this is a 7% increase since 2005/06 (2,791 complaints), the number of complaints has been reducing every year since 2003/04 (3,301 complaints in 2003/04 and 3,048 complaints in 2004/05).

• There was an increase in the number of Family Health Services complaints made to Highland Health Board in 2006/07 (113 complaints) compared to 2005/06 (43 complaints). Highland Health Board introduced a new local reporting system in 2006/07, which has enabled them to capture a more accurate figure for Family Health Services complaints compared to previous years. Also, Highland Health Board has absorbed some of the complaints from the dissolved Argyll and Clyde Health Board.

• There was a reduction in the number of complaints to the Scottish Ambulance Service, with 349 complaints received in 2006/07 compared to 380 in 2005/06, and 486 in 2004/05 (8% decrease in the last year).

• The number of complaints to NHS24 have continued to fall over the last 3 years (378 in 2004/05; 281 in 2005/06 and 194 in 2006/07).  There has been a decrease of 31% over the past year.

• The number of complaints to The State Hospitals Board for Scotland was 112 for 2006/07.  This has increased from 83 in 2005/06. A few patients made multiple complaints in this year amounting to 44 of the number reported. This accounts for most of the increase compared with the previous year.

• The number of complaints received from blood donors to the Scottish National Blood Tranfusion Service was 156 in 2006/07.  This has increased of 33% from 117 in 2005/06. The main reasons for this increase in complaints are changes in and tightening of guidelines in donor selection criteria e.g. more stringent criteria of haemoglobin levels and more rigorous assessment of donors over 65, which result in higher deferral rates of donors.

• New complaints data has been collected in 2006/07 to include the other Special Health Boards; National & Support organisations and the Scottish Health Council. The number of these complaints in 2006/07 was 58.

   

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Main contact:

Santiago Nieva
Information Analyst
Tel: 0131 275 7186
Email: santiago.nieva@isd.csa.scot.nhs.uk

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