Yorkshire and Lincolnshire NHS trusts rank among most complained about

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Wednesday 26 November 2014 at 11:25am

Report outlines complaints made against NHS Trusts Credit: Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman

Some NHS Trusts across Yorkshire and Lincolnshire are among the most complained about in the country, according to a report released today.

More than 1,400 people filed complaints against the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which includes Pinderfields, Pontefract and Dewsbury hospitals, making it the third worst in the country.

The next highest was Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust with 1,066 complaints.

At Mid Yorkshire, 67 complaints were referred to the ombudsman, 15 of which were investigated and one upheld. In Leeds, 115 were referred to the ombudsman with 15 investigations and three upheld.

The report explains that before a complaint can be made to the ombudsman, the patient should give the organisation they are complaining about the opportunity to respond to the complaint and put things right. As a result, most complaints about NHS organisations are resolved at the local level. The ombudsman can then be approached with an enquiry if patients remain unhappy once the NHS organisation has tried to resolve their complaint.

Misdiagnosed health problems, problems with treatment and the "attitude" of staff are among the most common grievances for patients, Britain's firsthospital complaints league table has revealed.

New figures show the performance of hospital trusts vary wildly, with someattracting thousands of complaints while others receive just a handful.

Barts Health NHS Trust in London was the most complained about trust in the country, with some 2,451 written grievances in 2013 to 2014.

The figures show that problems with their care are patients' biggest gripe, with three out of 10 complaints about clinical care and treatment. The same percentage related to communication or problems with diagnosis - while two out of 10 complaints refer to the "attitude" of staff.

And it appears that patient dissatisfaction is on the rise as the number ofwritten complaints about the service has nudged up to 174,872 from 162,019 the year before.

But the report shows some hospitals are far worse at dealing with thesecomplaints than others. Some trusts are 15 times more likely to have a complaint about them investigated by the ombudsman service.

Larger and busier city-based trusts with the largest number of "clinicalincidents" tend to attract more complaints than their smaller, and morespecialist, counterparts.

There are lots of reasons why numbers of complaints vary between hospitals and could be due to the size of the organisation or types of patients it serves, for example. We are publishing this data today because every complaint presents an opportunity to improve services. We know that poor communication, errors with diagnosis and poor care and treatment are the most common reasons why people complain to us about their hospital treatment. Other common reasons for complaints are staff attitude, no apology when things go wrong and unnecessary delay in treatment. We hope NHS leaders use the data in this report to identify themes, and recurring problems in order to understand what they have done well and how they can improve their complaint handling.

The full lists for trusts in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire is below:

Trust: Complaints, Enquiries, Upheld
Airedale NHS Foundation Trust: 73, 11, 0
Barnsley Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: 279, 19, 2
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: 553, 41, 5
Calderdale & Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust: 564, 63, 2
Doncaster & Bassettlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: 417, 31, 5
Harrogate District NHS Foundation Trust: 215, 36, 2
Hull & East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust: 789, 51, 2
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust: 1,066, 118, 3
Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust: 1,405, 67, 3
Northern Lincolnshire & Goole NHS Foundation Trust: 537, 62, 2
Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust: 595, 22 , 1
Sheffield Children's Hospital NHS Trust: 116, 8, 1
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: 949, 101, 1
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust: 712, 94, 5
York Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: 564, 78, 4

Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust have not yet commented on today's report.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust responded to the report saying: