Review of NHS complaints system - From NHS website Complaining is

[NBob]

dh.gov.uk/health/2013/03/nh...

The review wants to hear from patients and patient representatives so please contact then at the email address below regarding any complaints you have made that were fruitless. Perhaps TUK could send a response coordinating members experiences.

15 March, 2013

A review aimed at ensuring that all hospitals listen to and act upon the concerns of patients has been launched.

It will be led by Ann Clwyd, MP for Cynon Valley, and Professor Tricia Hart, Chief Executive of South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and advisor to Robert Francis during his two inquiries into the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust.

The review of NHS complaints handling was first announced by the Prime Minister in his response to Robert Francis’s report into failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.

Proposed terms of reference

The review will engage with patients and their carers and representatives, staff and managers to hear and understand their experience of the way trusts manage and act on concerns and complaints.

The review will consider the handling of concerns and complaints in NHS hospital care in England and, in doing so, will:

>consider how to align more closely the handling of concerns and complaints about patient care

>identify where good practice exists, and how good practice for delivering to those standards is shared and what helps or hinders its adoption

>consider what standards might best be applied to the handling of complaints

>consider how intelligence from concerns and complaints can be used to improve service delivery, and how this information might best be made more widely available to service users and commissioners

>consider the role of the Trust Board and senior managers in developing a culture that takes the concerns of individuals seriously and acts on them

>identify the skills and behaviours that staff, including clinical staff, need to ensure that the concerns of individuals are at the heart of their work

>consider how complainants might more appropriately be supported during the complaints process through, for example, advice, mediation and advocacy

>include the handling of concerns raised by staff, including the support of whistleblowers

It will be encouraged to make recommendations about:

>any aspect of the NHS complaints arrangements and other means by which patients make concerns known

>the way that organisations receive and act on concerns and complaints

>how Boards and managers carry out their functions

>the process by which individual organisations are held to account for the way that they handle concerns and complaints

>The review team will report to the Secretary of State for Health by the Parliamentary summer recess.

Contacting the review team

Anyone wishing to submit evidence to the review is welcome to do so.

email: [e-mail]

Write to:

Review of NHS Complaints Handling

Department of Health

Room 5E43, Quarry House

Quarry Hill

Leeds

LS2 7UE

[helvella Administrator]

They might get quite a few responses!

Including from me.

Rod

[NBob in reply to helvella]

Thanks Rod

I'm certainly replying. I complained to my hospital because an Endo said that they had had some bad experiences with Dr Skinners treatment of some patients. I am not aware of any so I submitted a Freedom if Information request to find out how many patients they knew had suffered due to Dr Skinner. Reply = we don't keep records. I complained to the Chief Exec ho passed it to the Chief Medical Officer who said that the Endo acted in good faith! No Investigation and no disciplinary action.

Just the sort of thing the Francis Report deplores. I'm off to the Ombudsman with this one. and will submit this to the enquiry.

[helvella Administrator in reply to NBob]

I shall take the "complain at the system rather than the individuals" approach.

[helvella Administrator in reply to helvella]

My personal response is available, for better or for worse, here:

dl.dropbox.com/u/318411/NHS...

[lynmynott Partner Thyroid UK in reply to NBob]

I wish all patients who had had negative comments about Dr S, Dr P and us would ask for a Freedom of Information request! Perhaps it would stop them from doing it in the future!

Unfortunately, we don't have time to cooordinate a response but I'll put it out on our website so that everyone can respond. Lyn

[tavy]

can I still complane about a GP telling me that I was a typical, unhappy, 40 yr old. this continued for owver 2 yrs. when finally he agreed to do a blood test, my TSH was 33.9

I had lost over 2 yrs of my life and was suidcidal, on antidepresants. which I didnt need.

He met me in the car park of the surgery, with a bottle of 25mg thyroxine. Kept repeating, Im sorry, so very very sorry. this is not magic but it will help.

[merissa in reply to tavy]

Your post is so wrong so wrong indeed, you are right to complain, Thank goodness your TSH was picked up.

xx

[NBob in reply to tavy]

your treatment by your doctor is so wrong. your doctor did not comply with his duty to provide good clinical care, work in partnership with you, keep up to date, and unfairly discriminated against you because of your age. His failure to treat you properly has harmed your health and is a serious patient safety matter that needs redressing so that other patients don't suffer in the same way.

See the NHS webpage on the ban on age discrimination.

dh.gov.uk/health/2012/09/br...

if I were in your position I would complain to the GMC.

gmc-uk.org/concerns/making_...

You could also contact the PCT and also the Equalities Commission

equalityhumanrights.com/

about the age discrimination.

If you do complain, please read Good Medical Practice

gmc-uk.org/guidance/good_me...

and slot in what your doctor did against what GMP says he should have done and provide evidence to prove he did that. so you may be able to recall what he said on each visit and write that down. your patient notes will also be invauable and you can get copies of them for a reasonable fee particularly if your doctor wrote "its just old age" or there are no notes of any para 2a investigation (see below)

So the preamble says

Work in partnership with patients

- Listen to patients and respond to their concerns and preferences. He didn't do that.

paragraph 2a says

Good clinical care must include:

adequately assessing the patient’s conditions, taking account of the history (including the symptoms, and psychological and social factors), the patient’s views,

and where necessary examining the patient. He didn't do that.

3 (d)take steps to alleviate pain and distress whether or not a cure may be possible. He didn't do that until the blood test

21 (c) treat each patient as an individual. by saying you're just a typical 40 year old he treated you as a group not an individual.

22 To communicate effectively he must:

(a) listen to patients, ask for and respect their views about their health, and respond to their concerns and preferences

[NBob in reply to NBob]

please ignore typos, I've just finished my Out of Hours

[tavy in reply to NBob]

gosh I wish Id been well enough ages ago to have joined groups you are so supportive and helofull. thank you very mmuch, even my family thought I was going mad. thank

[ravenhex]

Interesting I think I shall pop them a little note of some of things I have endured while under the Not helping Service NHS.