A REPORT by the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales has called for “urgent cultural change” to end the cycle of poor complaint handling in the Welsh NHS.
‘Groundhog Day 2: An Opportunity for Cultural Change in Complaint Handling?’, has been issued by Michelle Morris and focuses on ongoing issues with how Welsh Health Boards handle complaints.
The report follows “Ending Groundhog Day: Lessons from Poor Complaint Handling”, published by the Ombudsman’s office in March 2017.
It shows that the lessons highlighted by the office in 2017 remain relevant today.
The case examples included in this Report demonstrate that “all too often, Health Boards respond to complaints defensively rather than seeing them as an opportunity for learning and improving the services they deliver.”
The report cites a “lack of openness and candour” and “a lack of objective review of clinical care and treatment” and calls for improvements in “timeliness and quality of communications” and “robustness and fairness of investigations undertaken by Health Boards.”
The introduction of the ‘Duty of Candour’ on health organisations in Wales, effective from 1 April, presents a “fresh opportunity for cultural change,” the report said, and “mandates health organisations to be open, transparent, and honest when patients experience harm during healthcare.”
Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, Michelle Morris, said: “During my first year as Ombudsman, I have been struck by the similar pattern of complaint handling failings which my office has identified in cases involving Health Boards across Wales.
“Although most health care across Wales is delivered in an excellent and professional manner, inevitably, sometimes organisations make mistakes.
“In 2022/23, we found that Health Boards made mistakes and should put things right in between 22 per cent and 41 per cent of our complaints about these bodies - depending on the Health Board area.”
“When mistakes happen, we expect health bodies to respond openly and honestly to patients and their families, but this does not always happen.
“In fact, we have seen an increase in complaints about poor complaint handling by Health Boards.”
“For example, we often see that, when Health Boards respond to complaints, they have not objectively assessed the care and treatment provided.
“In another example, even when, following investigation, the facts of a case clearly show that the Health Board made a mistake, we see that organisations do not acknowledge this in their complaint responses.
“These failings have real impact on patients and their families, often compounding the trauma caused by mistakes in care and treatment.”