COMPLAINTS against health boards in Wales handled by the Public Service Ombudsman for Wales have risen again, with Hywel Dda Health Board having the highest intervention rate in the country, a new report shows.

The Public Ombudsman for Wales, Michelle Morris released the data for complaints to health boards in Wales during 2022/23 on 21 August.

The data shows that 926 complaints were referred to the Ombudsman last year – an increase of 21 per cent compared to the previous year - and representing around five per cent of all health board complaints.

During that period, the Ombudsman steeped in to resolver disputes in 30 per cent of cases, but in Hywel Dda that figure reached 41 per cent.

“This high intervention rate - and increase of 13 per cent on 2021/22 - is of concern,” the Ombudsman said.

Just four per cent of overall complaints in Hywel Dda were referred to the Ombudsman, data shows.

In Powys, the health board had the highest rate in Wales of complaints being referred to the Ombudsman, with 16 per cent referred.

In North Wales, Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board saw eight per cent of its complaints referred to the Ombudsman.

Overall for 2022/23, Hywel Dda saw 104 complaints referred to the Ombudsman, while Betsi Cadwaladr had 225 and Powys saw 23 referred.

Wales-wide figures show that Health Boards received nearly 19,000 complaints in 2022/23 - the equivalent of around six complaints for every 1,000 residents of Wales.

Records show that the highest proportion of complaints (28 per cent) recorded by health boards were about the clinical treatment which people received, while 19 per cent were about appointments, and 16 per cent were about communication issues.

The data shows that about 75 per cent of complaints were closed within the target of 30 working days. This was about the same as last year, but varied greatly across the Health Boards.

Michelle Morris said she “encourages health boards to use this data to better understand performance on complaints.”

“Colleagues from my Improvement Team meet regularly with Hywel Dda University Health Board and Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board to discuss compliance with our recommendations and our complaints standards work,” she added.

“Our Complaints Standards Authority plays an important part of promoting transparency on complaints and publishing this data helps us achieve that.

“When looking at this data, alongside the information from our own casework, we begin to learn more about how well public bodies manage complaints.”