Patient concerns ignored by NHS trusts

Patients' grievances are being ignored by some NHS trusts, while others take months to launch investigations and many fail to act on findings, according to the Healthcare Commission.

In its first audit on how complaints are handled, the Commission said the processes are "fragmented and inconsistent" and it issued warnings to 30 NHS trusts over conduct.

Twelve of those trusts had allowed a "significant lapse" in how they handled patient grievances.

Every year, around 140,000 formal complaints are received about NHS care in England compared with the more than 380 million treatments provided by the health service.

The first step for patients who wish to complain is to contact the body providing the care, such as their GP surgery or the local primary care trust (PCT).

If the issue is not resolved to the patient's satisfaction, he or she has six months to take their complaint to the Healthcare Commission for independent review.

The body receives around 8,000 such requests each year, of which a third are sent back to the trust to be resolved.

The Commission inspected 42 trusts for the latest audit - 32 which it had concerns about and ten it believed handled complaints well and could provide evidence of best practice.

It measured them against core standards including making the complaints system accessible to patients, learning from mistakes, and ensuring a patient's care is not compromised because they have made a complaint.

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