Britain’s NHS complaints procedures have been likened to “asking hospitals to grade their own homework”, in research by a leading London university.
Researchers set out to examine the national policies for handling complaints within the health service, where some 200,000 complaints are made each year.
Complaints are a “critical source” to help drive improvements, with most patients and families contributing to the system to prevent harm from occurring to others, yet they “often” feel dissatisfied with the system, researchers said. They said the “complex, bureaucratic nature” of the complaints system is often cited as an “obstacle to effective complaint handling”.
The team of academics, led by experts from Imperial College London, examined national policies guiding NHS hospitals and interviewed 20 clinical, managerial, complaints, and patient advocacy staff about their experiences with the system….