Quarter of people in England had poor NHS care in past year, report says

A quarter of people in England experienced poor NHS care over the last year but fewer than one in 10 of them complained about it, a report by the patient watchdog has revealed.

When people did complain, more than half were not satisfied with either the process involved or the outcome, Healthwatch England said. Complaints take many months to resolve.

It found a widespread lack of public confidence in the health service’s handling of complaints, and “little evidence” that it was discharging its duty to use complaints to improve care.

Louise Ansari, the watchdog’s chief executive, accused the NHS of doing too little to take complaints more seriously and urged it to adopt “a culture of listening and learning” from them so that patients’ concerns would start to carry more weight.

The NHS has not responded properly to repeated concerns about the way it deals with complaints raised by official bodies and inquiries, and appears to be stuck in “a cycle of repeating the same mistakes”, the report said.

Ansari said: “We flagged failings with the NHS over a decade ago, following the patient safety scandal at Mid Staffordshire hospital. Ten years on, our research shows that the public still lack confidence in the NHS complaints system.”

The health service has not heeded its call for an overhaul and demonstrates persistent “serious failings in how NHS organisations listen and respond to patient feedback”, the watchdog said.

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Source: The Guardian, 27 January 2025

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