PATIENT CARE
to deliver high-quality and timely care, which will only lead to a further increase in the number of complaints.
2. An ageing population means more people need care
As funding gets tighter, demand for NHS services is increasing. An ageing population means more people are living with ongoing and complicated conditions, putting services and personnel under an unprecedented amount of strain.
This makes it increasingly difficult for NHS providers to meet ambitious waiting time targets while still providing the highest quality of care. Added to this is the growing crisis in social care – all of which will see more and more complaints directed towards the NHS.
3. The NHS is facing an urgent staffing crisis
Recruitment is an ongoing problem for the NHS. Two-thirds of trusts say that maintaining an effective workforce is their number one challenge due to major shortfalls in medical staff. The teams on the ground have also voiced their unease at the situation, with eight out of ten health professionals raising concerns about a chronic lack of staff. This places patient safety at risk and will
only serve to undermine trust in the NHS. The former Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, set ambitious recruitment targets that are highly likely to be missed, with the NHS losing a growing number of doctors and nurses from EU countries as part of the fallout from the EU Referendum in 2016.
4. Patients have higher expectations than ever before
The rising number of complaints is also partly the result of the UK population becoming more demanding. A nation of consumers, we’ve come to expect high quality and convenience in every part of our lives – and, when we’re made to wait, we’re more likely to complain.
The NHS is working hard to improve standards, but it continues to face an uphill battle to close the gap between expectation
NOVEMBER 2018
During 2016/17, the NHS received 208,400 written complaints – an increase of 4.9% on the previous year.
and a reality in which you can order your groceries online and have them delivered on the same day, but you’d struggle to get an appointment with your GP in the same week you called them.
The true cost of poor complaint management
A rise in complaints might not sound like a dangerous thing, but complaint management in the NHS can be a matter of life and death. This is demonstrated by a 2015 document from the Ombudsman that highlighted what’s known as ‘the human cost of poor complaints handling within the NHS’. The report found that nearly half of written complaints were about how
complaints and issues had been handled. That’s a huge problem that really does have the potential to destroy patient trust in the NHS. If people believe their complaints aren’t being listened to, how can they be expected to believe that services will improve? The simple answer is they can’t – and that’s how the erosion of trust begins. A clear example of what can go wrong took place in 2013, when an enquiry into the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust found that unaddressed complaints had caused needless suffering to hundreds of patients. In his report, Robert Francis QC stated that poor complaints handling had allowed problems to remain unchecked and poor practices to persist. “A health service that does not listen to complaints is unlikely to reflect its patients’ needs,” he wrote.
NHS trusts have to prioritise complaint handling to improve care
Effective complaint handling is critical for the NHS and should be a top priority. Otherwise, it’ll see a reduction in patient safety lead to a lack of trust in its healthcare services. Part of the problem is the complexity of current complaint-handling systems. The NHS is keen to be transparent and learn from complaints, but the literature and processes involved can be complicated. On top of that, administration systems are often out-of-date, paper-based and fragmented. Fortunately for NHS trusts, there are ways to improve their systems and transform the way they handle complaints. New technology offers them a future in which complaints are acted upon quickly across the entire NHS – leading to better care and increased patient trust. It’ll also take the pressure off of already-stretched medical teams.
The NHS has reached a remarkable milestone of providing universal healthcare for 70 years, and better complaint handling will be a critical part of helping it to thrive for another 70 to come. The first step, however, is to recognise the problem, diagnose its symptoms and prescribe a course of action. Doctor’s orders...
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