By Ken Thomas,
medical negligence expert at Harding Evans Solicitors
The Health Service Ombudsman
for Wales looks into complaints made by patients who have suffered
because of poor NHS treatment. The Ombudsman can only consider
complaints in respect of private treatment if it was in fact funded
by the NHS. Every year, his office publishes a report which always
makes interesting reading.
The latest statistics show that complaints
received by the Ombudsman have doubled since 1995/96. For the year
2003/4 the number of complaints received increased by 16% on the
previous year.
The Ombudsman’s report provides some summaries of typical cases. Two
of those are from Gwent hospitals. One concerned a failure to
diagnose bowel cancer. The complainant also felt that the handling
of the complaint had been unsatisfactory. The Ombudsman found that
there had indeed been some medical failings and that the
unsatisfactory handling of the complaint had served to fuel the
family’s overall dissatisfaction.
The other Gwent complaint concerned a delay in patient referral and
waiting list maladministration. Again, the Ombudsman was critical of
certain aspects of the service provided. He offered some guidance on
the need for the waiting list system to be operated fairly. In
response the Trust agreed to review the way it administered its
appointment system.
The other complaints summarised in the report are drawn from across
Wales and various parts of the NHS. For example, a GP’s failure to
visit and examine a patient, disclosure of confidential medical
details and the service provided by a GP deputising (out of hours)
service.
Interestingly, he also considered a complaint in respect of the
manner in which a patient was removed from a dentist’s patient list.
The Ombudsman felt that there had been a misunderstanding of the
procedure set out by the British Dental Association for removal of a
patient. The conclusion was that the misunderstanding was due to the
national guidance itself being unclear.
Complaints play an important role both for the NHS and the patient.
For instance, NHS Trusts can learn lessons from complaints lodged
and thereby seek to improve services offered. As for the patient,
the complaints process allows him or her to express their
dissatisfaction and gain a better understanding of why their
treatment outcome was not acceptable.
In the context of claims for medical negligence – and funding of
those claims – complaints are about to become especially pivotal.
From 1st July, with few exceptions, anyone seeking Legal Aid to
pursue such a claim will have had to pursue an NHS complaint in the
first place. This is not necessarily a bad thing insofar as the
complaints process can enable all parties to gain an insight into
what went wrong and why and thereby better assess the likelihood of
there being a claim for compensation.
