The Trust received a total of 494 formal written complaints in 2010-11, an increase of 11% on the previous year. Complaints are acknowledged within two working days and 68% were fully responded to within timescales agreed with the complainant.
60% of complaints were received at St Helier Hospital, with 27% relating to Epsom. No complaints were received for Queen Mary's Hospital for Children, 4% related to Sutton Hospital and 6% to the Elective Orthopaedic Centre (EOC).
Complaints about the surgery directorate account for 26% of all complaints, with 26% relating to general and emergency medicine, 15% to women and children's services and 10% to specialty medicine. All of these are similar proportions to the previous year.
The top four issues emerging from complaints in 2010-11 were about:
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all aspects of clinical care and treatment
(52%, 260 complaints - up from 51% in 2009-10);
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delay in care arrangements
(15%, 75 complaints - the same as in 2009-10);
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communication and information
(11%, 55 complaints - the same as in 2009-10);
-
attitude
(7.5%, 38 complaints - down from 10% in 2009-10).
This analysis mirrors the issues raised in the last inpatient survey.
Complaint response management
The percentage of complaints concluded within 25 working days was 68%, a decline in comparison to both the previous year (86%) and the year 2008-09 (84%). Additional actions are now in place to improve performance. The new model of appointing an Investigating Officer (IO) for complex complaints has been implemented.
Whilst there is no longer a national timeframe to respond to complaints, the Trust's executive team has set a target of 90% of complaints to have a response within 25 days as a minimum requirement, unless agreement is reached with the patient to a different timeframe.
Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS)
The Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) continues to be a valued service and is provided on both main hospital sites. There has been an increase in contacts of 700 compared to last year, with 2,816 enquiries in total (compared to 2,117 contacts in 2009-10).
762 of all contacts involved feedback, 628 were requests for information, 1,167 required action and the resolution of issues, and 63 were expressions of gratitude. The remaining 163 have not been categorised in detail on the recording system.
The top three complaint themes patients have raised with PALS have been issues primarily related to communication. Communication with administration and clerical staff was raised 357 times, communication with medical staff was raised 224 times, and communication with nursing staff 119 times.
Over the past two years, the Trust has continued to focus on resolving and learning from complaints with clear commitment and support from the Trust's executive team.
More details and a comparison to the previous two financial years can be found in the annual complaints reports below.
