From April 2009, the government is introducing a single complaints process for health and social care. The existing complaints system is being reformed because of the bureaucracy involved, problems taking too long to be resolved and the failure of healthcare and social care providers to learn from their mistakes. Some people do not complain because they do not know how to or believe that their complaint will not result in any change.
At present if a patient is unhappy with the way an NHS Trust has dealt with his or her complaint, that individual can refer the problem to the
Healthcare Commission, an independent watchdog for healthcare, to request an independent review. If the patient is still not happy after this, the matter can be referred to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. From April 2009, there will be a new two-tier system. If the complainant is unhappy with a trust's response he or she may refer it directly to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman to request a review. The new system will put more emphasis on trusts resolving complaints at a local level.
The Department of Health hopes that the new system will encourage a culture that uses people's experiences to improve care. Organisations will also have to be more accountable. The Department of Health has launched a guide to help services improve customer care.
In addition, from 1 April 2009, the Healthcare Commission is being replaced by the
Care Quality Commission. The new commission will not deal with complaints handling. The law that governs how NHS and local authority adult social care services need to deal with complaints is also being simplified to provide a general framework, allowing a more personalised approach to complaints handling.
Earlier this year the Healthcare Commission reported that it upheld 30% of all complaints last year, which was up from 20% the previous year. Another 17% of cases were sent back to the individual trusts because their approach to handling the complaints was thought to be insufficient. The key issue was the way that the NHS handles complaints, followed by poor communication, standards of treatment and delay or failure to diagnose.
Our experience based on working on a large number of medical negligence cases is that NHS complaints are generally dealt with slowly and usually in an unsatisfactory manner. However, there are a small number of complaints which result in admissions by trusts that help to speed up any subsequent civil case and this obviously results in costs savings during the litigation process. We would welcome any further steps that streamline the complaints process and make it a more thoughtful and, above all, open process.
The Legal Services Commission usually requires prospective litigants to go through the complaints process before it will grant funding for investigating a clinical (medical) negligence case. However in cases where the Healthcare Commission has become involved the length of the process often impacts on the amount of time litigants have before needing to commence court proceedings. The general rule is that an action claiming damages for personal injury must be commenced within 3 years of the date of the medical "accident". If proceedings are not started within this 3 year period the claim will not be able to proceed, although there are a number of exceptions to the rule. Potential litigants who go through the entire complaints process before approaching claimant solicitors may find that there is very little time to investigate their claim before they need to start court proceedings.
We would welcome it if the government ruled that any time spent under review by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is not counted towards the limitation period.
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