By John Tingle
There is a new report from Health Service Ombudsman (HSO) on GP (General Medical Practitioner) complaint handling and major failings are revealed. The HSO makes the final decisions on complaints that have not been resolved in England and lies at the apex of the NHS complaints system. The report reveals that some GP practices are failing to handle patient complaints properly. The report is based on evidence from HSO casework files and intelligence gathered by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) , NHS England and Healthwatch England. One hundred and thirty-seven closed complaint cases from November 2014 – November 2015 were analysed. General medical practice forms 90% of all NHS interactions with the general public.The quality of complaint handling by GPs was found to be highly variable:
“…over half of the cases were either good (46%) or outstanding (9%). However, over a third required improvement (36%) and a tenth were inadequate (10%) (p7).”
The report states that there are five areas where general practice has the most scope for improvement:
- Listening culture: ask for feedback
- Regulations: make sure practice staff understand what is expected of them
- Values: be professional
- Attitude: apologise where appropriate and be open and honest when things go wrong
- Learning: listen, respond and share
Interestingly GP practices generally do not receive many complaints, annually the average is 8.5. It is unclear why there are not more complaints about general practice. In 2014-15 the report states there were 67,012 complaints about general practice.One key area identified for improvement in the report was GP attitudes to patients and the need to apologise where appropriate and be open and honest when things go wrong
Saying sorry does appear to be one of the hardest things for some GP practices to do according to the report:
“…our review found a third of cases did not provide an apology where it would have been appropriate, and when apologies were given, they were not always sincere. ‘Sorry but’ and ‘sorry if’ were often used.” (p38).
Fear of litigation and increased indemnity fees were reasons that GP’s gave for not apologizing.
Letters
Crafting a letter of response to a patient who has complained is an art. If the letter is badly worded, dismissive, defensive in style and lacking empathy that will work to make matters worse. In over a third of the cases the response and the outcome of the complaint or concern was not shared in an empathetic manner:
“Some letters were defensive and dismissive at best and curt at worse” (p.39)”.
Reports recommendations
The report makes a number of recommendations and these include creating programmes of education and training to help practice staff understand how to deal with feedback, concerns and complaints more effectively. More attention should be paid to sharing what has been learnt and strategies for doing this are outlined. Clarification on the complaints regulations, and apologies should be provided to practice staff by the Department of Health, NHS England.
