A pain to complain

A pain to complain: new research from Healthwatch England

Healthwatch England has shared a new report which looks at some of the barriers people face when making a complaint about NHS healthcare.

Read the findings and recommendations.

Key findings

Very few patients complain

Almost 24% said they had experienced poor NHS care in the past year. Yet more than half (56%) of people who experienced poor care took no action, and fewer than one in 10 made a formal complaint.

Low confidence stops people acting

Of those who didn’t make a complaint after poor care, 34% believed that the NHS wouldn’t use their complaint to improve services, 33% thought organisations wouldn’t respond effectively, and 30% felt the NHS wouldn’t see their concern as ‘serious enough’.

A poor complaints experience is common

Over half (56%) of people who made a formal complaint were dissatisfied with both the process and the outcome of their complaint.

Falling investment in support to help people complain

The budget allocated to councils to arrange statutory NHS complaints advocacy for local people has declined by more than 20% over the last decade.

People experience long waits for responses

On average, integrated care boards (ICBs) took 54 working days to respond to complaints they handled as commissioners of NHS services. Response times ranged from between 18 and 114 working days.

The NHS is not effectively learning lessons

NHS organisations do not effectively capture the right data about who makes complaints, do not welcome complaints or fail to fully demonstrate learning from complaints. There is little national oversight and accountability over the complaints process.