According to a committee of MPs, a “more open culture” is required to handle complaints about the health service in England. The committee has members from different political parties and said the system should be overhauled to ensure patients who complained were treated fairly. They also criticized the role of the Health Ombudsman and said it was not dealing with enough complaints.
It is only in the last two years that patients have had the opportunity to take their complaints directly to the Health Ombudsman. Before 2009, the Healthcare Commission reviewed cases and decided whether to refer them up to the Ombudsman or not. This intervention was stopped to hasten the process.
However critics have warned that the new system could be operating at the expense of some complaints. The Ombudsman carried out official investigations into only 3% of the 15,000 complaints it received during 2009-2010, although it did look into more in an unofficial capacity.
The committee's chairman Stephen Dorrell said the ombudsman's current remit excluded a number of cases sent for review. “Patients should feel entitled to an independent review. That mismatch between patients' expectations and what the ombudsman does in practice needs to be closed,” he said.
“In particular we are concerned about the number of individual cases where complainants did not feel the NHS was sufficiently responsive to their concerns,” the committee said. The report said the role of the independent Health Service Ombudsman should also be expanded to allow more claims to be examined as part of an appeals process when patients are unhappy.
The number of complaints about the NHS is rising and tops one million a year. Experts believe a mixture of factors is to blame, including worsening care, increased demand for healthcare and better awareness of the complaints process.
Katherine Murphy, of the Patients Association, said the system was failing patients. “How can a system hope to be fair and impartial when it relies on the trust investigating itself,” she added. Action Against Medical Accidents chief executive Peter Walsh said, “We are very pleased that the committee has accepted our and other participants' calls for better access to independent review of complaints. Only a fraction of people who had independent reviews under the old system can get the ombudsman to investigate.”
A spokeswoman for the Health Ombudsman said, “Where our assessment reveals clear evidence of maladministration or injustice, we consider whether we can resolve the issue quickly and effectively through our intervention rather than a full investigation. The system for handling NHS complaints is a complex one. We welcome the report's endorsement of the current system's design and potential, its emphasis on listening to patients and support for advocacy and the committee's call for a greater focus on complaints data and learning from complaints.”
A Department of Health spokesman said, “The revised plans we set out last week, in response to the independent NHS Future Forum, will safeguard the future of the NHS and put patients at the heart of our health service. Under the plans, patients will have a stronger voice and the NHS will be more accountable for the quality of care it provides for patients.”
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