Report finds NHS are not dealing with complaints properly
- 01.11.2016
- GillEdwards
- Clinical-negligence, Opinion, Clinical-negligence, Opinion
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, Julie Mellor, reviews complaints about medical care.
Bear in mind that she is the second stage in a process where patients and families have tried and failed to obtain the answers they need direct from their local NHS provider.
It is all too easy to dismiss such complaints as insignificant but some of the care complained about has resulted in avoidable injury and death.
Concerns about care are wide-ranging. In the report published yesterday, some patients had experienced delays in diagnosing cancer which can have a devastating effect on the long term outcome where the cancer has become invasive or terminal because of the delays.
Often responses from Trusts and defence organisations are guarded or defensive, even though there is now a Duty of Candour to provide frank and honest answers when things have gone wrong.
This is something we see in the clinical negligence cases we deal with and very often a large part of what we do, in addition to obtaining compensation for our clients, is to help them get answers about what went wrong and why.
Whilst we see positive examples of some Trusts being open with patients when there has been an untoward incident, unfortunately this approach is still far from widespread. In many cases, even though incidents are investigated internally by a Trust, the reports disclosed to the patients rarely provide the whole story and key documents are often held back.
More often than not, when claimant solicitors speak out on behalf of patients, they are accused of self-interest but perhaps the NHS Litigation Authority will listen to the independent comments of the Ombudsman who has said:
When people pluck up the courage to complain they are all too often met with defensive and inadequate responses. Complaints need to be dealt with properly, so that people are given answers and to help prevent any failures from happening again.