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Showing results for tags 'Complaint'.
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Content ArticleMedical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States. Putting patients first — listening to their own and their families’ concerns — can help eliminate medical errors altogether. A patient-centric approach encourages patients to communicate their ‘gut feelings’ when something seems wrong, thereby working to end the pervasive and dangerous culture of silence and fear in hospitals.
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Content Article
The Ombudsman’s Casework Report 2019 (3 March 2020)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Complaints
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) make final decisions on complaints that have not been resolved by the NHS in England, UK government departments and other UK public organisations. The PHSO look into complaints where someone believes there has been injustice or hardship because an organisation has not acted properly or has given a poor service and not put things right. The PHSO looks into complaints fairly, and the service is free for everyone. This first annual Ombudsman’s Casework Report highlights the breadth of cases received across PHSO's jurisdictions. It is only a small cross-section of the cases completed in 2019. The complaints presented here are typical of many of the complaints seen across PHSO's remit. They include complaints about government bodies and the NHS. -
News Article
Only six of 200 NHS private units signed up to complaints watchdog
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Just six of the English NHS’s more than 200 private patient units (PPUs) are signed up to the independent complaints adjudicator, HSJ has learned. The figures follow the publication of the Paterson Inquiry earlier this month. The inquiry’s report warned patients treated in private units, including PPUs, which are not regulated by the Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service (ISCAS) “will not have access to independent investigation or adjudication of their complaint”. ISCAS is the main independent adjudicator for the private healthcare sector and takes on approximately 125 adjudications each year on unresolved patient complaints. Most standalone independent providers have signed up to the watchdog. However, ISCAS membership is not mandatory and it is concerned patients wishing to complain about care at PPUs will have little choice but to pursue costly legal action. The government is now considering the inquiry’s recommendation that all private patients are given the right to a mandatory independent resolution of their complaint. Read full story Source: HSJ, 26 February 2020 -
News Article
"Get doctors in the room for clinical negligence mediation," lawyers told
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Mediators want more clinicians to come forward – and lawyers to enable them – to speak directly to patients bringing medical negligence claims against the NHS. Alan Jacobs, mediator at the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution, told a conference of lawyers that they should do more to encourage discussions between injured people and those allegedly responsible. His call came as figures show record numbers of clinical claims against the NHS went to mediation in 2018/19 – with the majority of mediations resulting in damages being agreed on the day. Jacobs, speaking at the Claims Media conference in Manchester, said the challenge now is to ensure medical professionals volunteer to take part in the process. "It allows an apology to be given face to face and allows explanations to be given," he said. "It is also an opportunity for the clinician to have a discussion, sit down with the claimant and answer questions and concerns. It can be tremendously important for a claimant to vent and express their frustrations and for the trust to hear that." Both claimant and defendant lawyers agreed on the merits of bringing doctors in to the room, but stressed this was not always a realistic aim. Barrister Daniel Frieze, head of the personal injury team at St Johns Buildings, said: "Often it is too late and there is too much water under the bridge. Claimants are very stressed and it may be counter-productive for them to face the other side. I know the idea is of being collaborative but I’m not sure that’s necessarily always true." Read full story Source: 21 February 2020, The Law Society Gazette -
Content ArticleOrganisations should make sure people know the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) is the final stage for complaints that haven’t been resolved through the organisation’s own complaints process. This applies to small NHS organisations like GP and dental practices as well as larger ones like hospitals or government departments. It’s important that people complain to the provider organisation first and give them a chance to respond to their concerns, before they come to the PHSO. But if someone isn’t happy with how the provider organisation has answered their complaint, they need to know they have a right to come to the PHSO with it. Here are some tips to help providers make sure people know when and how to use the PHSO service.
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Content ArticleThis paper, published by BMJ Quality & Safety, looks at the global rise in patient complaints which has been accompanied by growing research to effectively analyse complaints for safer, more patient-centric care. Most patients and families complain to improve the quality of healthcare, yet progress has been complicated by a system primarily designed for case-by-case complaint handling. If healthcare settings are better supported to report, analyse and use complaints data in a standardised manner, complaints could impact on care quality in important ways. This review has established a range of evidence-based, short-term recommendations to achieve this.
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Content ArticleAn effective complaints system is a vital part of high-quality health and social care, helping services and individuals learn how to do better when things don't go according to plan. For people to speak up about their concerns, they need to be confident that the system will act in response. In order to build the trust the NHS needs to consistently demonstrate that they are taking people's complaints seriously. This report investigates how well NHS trusts across England communicate about their work on complaints and whether current effort are sufficient to build that public trust.
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News Article
NHS faces huge clinical negligence legal fees bill
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
The NHS in England faces paying out £4.3 billion in legal fees to settle outstanding claims of clinical negligence, the BBC has learned through a Freedom of Information request. Each year the NHS receives more than 10,000 new claims for compensation. The Department of Health has pledged to tackle "the unsustainable rise in the cost of clinical negligence". Estimates published last year put the total cost of outstanding compensation claims at £83 billion. NHS England's total budget in 2018-19 was £129 billion. The Association of Personal Injuries Lawyers (APIL) believes the cost is driven by failures in patient safety. Doctors represented by the Medical Defence Union (MDU), which supports doctors at risk of litigation, are calling for "a fundamental" reform of the current system. Suzanne White, from APIL, said people came to her on a daily basis with no intention of suing the NHS. But she said they often found it difficult to get answers from the medical authorities - and were left with no other option but to sue. "What they want to do is find out what went wrong, why they have received these injuries ... and to make sure it doesn't happen to other patients." Read full story Source: BBC News, 21 January 2020 -
Content ArticleThe Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI) outlines the process in Canada if you have a question or a concern about the healthcare services you have received.
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Content Article
PHSO: Good leadership and complaints
PatientSafetyLearning Team posted an article in Complaints
Listening and acting on patient feedback and good complaint handling can have a positive impact on your reputation. It shows you listen and care about what service users say and act on it. Here, the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman, lists four things you can do as a leader to help create a team culture that values and learns from complaints. -
Content ArticleShifting the mindset (2020), a report from Healthwatch, investigates how hospitals report on complaints and whether current efforts are sufficient to build public trust. In this bog, Sir Robert Francis QC explains how hospitals can cultivate public trust in complaints.
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Content ArticleThis report,from Healthwatch, argues that hospitals, indeed the NHS more broadly, need to shift the mindset on complaints. Reporting needs to look beyond the numbers and response times and focus more on how to effectively demonstrate to patients and the public what has been learnt. This is the only way to give the public confidence that their concerns are being listened to and acted on.
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News Article
Lack of transparency on patient complaints risks confidence in the NHS
Patient Safety Learning posted a news article in News
Public confidence in the health service is being undermined by a lack of transparency from hospitals about patient complaints, the man who led the investigation into one of the NHS’s worst care disasters has warned. Sir Robert Francis QC, who chaired the public inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal, has called for a new national organisation with powers to set standards on the handling of patient complaints after research found seven in eight hospital trusts do not follow existing rules. The prominent barrister is now chair of Healthwatch England, a statutory body, which analysed 149 hospitals’ handling of complaints. Under current legislation every hospital is required to collect and report on the number of complaints they receive, what they were about and what action has been taken. Healthwatch England found just 12% of NHS trusts were compliant with all the rules. Only 16% published the required complaints reports while just 38% reported any details about learning or actions taken after a grievance. Speaking to The Independent, Sir Roberts said better reporting, including the outcome and changes made after a complaint, would create a “collaborative” environment to improving the system with patients and staff alike seeing complaints as a valuable resource. One persistent problem remained the gap, he said, between hospitals and the national Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. Sir Robert argued commissioners of NHS services should be more involved. Read full story Source: The Independent, 15 January 2020 -
Content ArticleIn this quarterly report the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) presents statistics on complaints about the NHS in England from April to June 2019 (Quarter 1 – 2019–20). It includes data about the NHS complaints received, assessed and investigated during this period by the PHSO.
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Content Article
Data on written complaints in the NHS 2017-18
PatientSafetyLearning Team posted an article in Complaints
The NHS complaints procedure is the statutorily based mechanism for dealing with complaints about NHS care and treatment and all NHS organisations in England are required to operate the procedure. This annual collection is a count of written complaints made by (or on behalf of) patients, received between 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2018 . -
Content ArticlePHSO – Labyrinth of Bureaucracy is the follow-up report to the November 2014 Patients Association report on the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, The ‘Peoples’ Ombudsman – How it Failed us.
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Content Article
Baby’s death from heart defect was avoidable (August 2019)
Claire Cox posted an article in PHSO investigations
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) were set up by Parliament to provide an independent complaint handling service for complaints that have not been resolved by the NHS in England and UK government departments. They share findings from casework to help Parliament scrutinise public service providers. They also share their findings more widely to help drive improvements in public services and complaint handling. Miss K complained to the PSHO about the care and treatment that her son, Baby K, received at the Trust in November 2015. She said that the Trust failed to act following various checks on Baby K, and it failed to escalate his care in line with the seriousness of his condition and he died as a result. Miss K also complained about the Trust’s handling of her complaint. -
Content Article
Medical negligence: Diathermy burns
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Legal matters
If you have suffered a diathermy burn during surgery, you will probably have a number of questions that need to be answered. For example, why did you wake up from surgery with a burn on your skin? Is this the fault of your surgeon? And is there any action you can take? -
Content Article
Our son's final days: "It was like he didn't matter"
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Patient stories
Mark Stuart spent five days in agony and died following a catalogue of failings by NHS staff. His parents say they have been battling for answers for four years. They tell their story to BBC News. -
Content Article
NHS Constitution for England (updated 2015)
PatientSafetyLearning Team posted an article in Good practice
The principles and values of the NHS in England, and information on how to make a complaint about NHS services. -
Content ArticleThis is the report of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) second investigation into the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) regulation of the Fit and Proper Persons Requirement (FPPR). Rob Behrens wrote to Dr Sarah Wollaston MP and Chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee to share the findings from the report. He underlines the need for reform of the FPPR system and for the recommendations from the Kark review to be swiftly implemented.
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Content ArticleThis report from the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) explains the findings of their research, highlights the issues they have identified and sets out the action they believe needs to be taken to improve the quality of NHS investigations.
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Content ArticleThe Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) use clinical advice as a key source of evidence to inform their thinking in around three quarters of their health investigations. It is crucial that they commission and use clinical advice correctly. It is also important that those involved in a complaint understand and have confidence in the way it has informed decisions. To meet a commitment they made in their new strategy for 2018-21, the PHSO carried out a major review of the way they use clinical advice when they investigate NHS complaints.
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Content ArticleEffective teamwork is critical to successful outcomes in pediatric cardiac surgery. Unfortunately, lapses in professional performance and conduct by those who treat paediatric cardiac patients pose threats to quality and safety. One hallmark of a profession is self regulation. Therefore, healthcare leaders need specific means for identifying and addressing those lapses and indicators of unsafe systems or individuals. This article from Pichert et al. describes an initial “near miss” event involving a paediatric cardiac surgeon. While fictional, the case represents a composite of events involving several paediatric cardiac surgeons who practice at different medical centers throughout the US.
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Content Article
Freedom to Speak Up Guardian job description (March 2018)
Claire Cox posted an article in Speak Up Guardians
This is the Freedom to Speak Up Guardian job description. Use it for reference or for a template to advertise for a Freedom to Speak Up Guardian in you trust/sector.
