The Isle of Wight NHS Trust has attracted national press coverage today following the release of a report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman on the number of complaints received by ‘acute trusts’ (report embedded below).
According to the report, the IW NHS Trust received the most complaints per 100,000 clinical incidents.
Inappropriate comparison
The IW NHS Trust have defended the figures saying it’s inappropriate to compare them with other Trusts as the IW NHS Trust figures also include Ambulance, Mental Health, Community and Acute services.
A spokesperson for the NHS told OnTheWight,
“Every complaint is taken very seriously by the Trust and is fully investigated to help continually improve our service. However, in looking at the data, it would be inappropriate to compare the Isle of Wight NHS Trust with other Trusts in a report based solely on acute services.
“Ours is an integrated organisation, which provides Ambulance, Mental Health, Community and Acute services. Therefore, it would be misleading to compare our unique Trust with other solely acute providers – for example, the figures quoted will include enquiries the Ombudsman has received from patients accessing the whole range of our services, including complaints about Mental Health, Ambulance and Community. The Clinical Incident data may also not fully reflected the total level of activity that takes place at our Trust.”
They went on to say,
“We would stress that we take all complaints and patient feedback very seriously. We publicise to all our complainants the process for taking complaints further if they are not satisfied by the Trust’s response. For example, we include a leaflet with any correspondence, and also include the Ombudsman’s contact details. We also actively encourage complainants to contact the Ombudsman if they are not satisfied by the Trust.
“As the Ombudsman’s report itself states, a Trust that is very open about giving this information to complainants might expect to have a higher proportion of complainants contact the Ombudsman.”
Reduction in complaints
The number of complaints in the last year has dropped significantly, from 333 in 2012/13 to 194 in 2013/14.
The IW NHS spokesperson added,
“As a Trust, we’ve worked hard to improve the way we deal with complaints. This has led to a significant reduction in the numbers; from 333 in the year 2012/13, to 194 in the year 2013/14. Our aim is to provide the best quality of care for patients at all times, so we are continuing to work to ensure that we learn from any complaint we receive and the Trust regularly gives feedback to staff where services need to be improved as a result of a complaint. Sometimes, a patient will contact the Ombudsman to make an enquiry and be redirected back to the Trust for local resolution.
“It is also important to note that enquiries received by the Ombudsman may not relate to the year 2013/14.Some may be historical or relate to previous years, as not all complaints are received in the same year as the incident may have happened.
“The majority of services provided by Isle of Wight NHS Trust are commissioned and funded by Isle of Wight Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), NHS England and Isle of Wight Council.”
The report
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Image: © Used with the kind permission of Auntie P
