Trust taking action after complaints rise
Reporter: Richard Hooton
Date published: 31 August 2011
Despite 180% increase, PCT receives more compliments
NHS Oldham has seen a 180 per cent rise in complaints over the last year.
But the primary care trust says it has taken criticism on board to carry out improvements.
And bosses point out it has received more written compliments — with 184 during 2010-11 — from patients or their representatives, than complaints.
The trust saw the number of complaints increase from 56 in 2009-10 to 157 in 2010-11.
Managing director Shauna Dixon said: “As these figures for written complaints from The Health and Social Care Information Centre show, there has been an increase compared with the previous year.
“We welcome compliments, comments and complaints as important feedback from service users, their relatives and carers, on the quality of the services we provide.
“Of the complaints received relating to Oldham Community Health Services, the walk-in facility and the continence service received the highest numbers of complaints and concerns.
“The learning from these resulted in work being carried out such as clinical supervision at the walk-in facility and contacting and reassessing some individual patients of the continence service.
“Of the complaints received relating to NHS Oldham’s services, the majority concerned facilities at the Oldham Integrated Care Centre.
“Some examples of the service improvements that have resulted from patient complaints and feedback include improvements made to car park signs at the Integrated Care Centre, a dedicated assessment room made available at Oldham’s walk-in facility to improve patients’ experience and maintain privacy and dignity and customised training delivered to teams to help improve standards of customer care across the organisation.”
Pennine Acute Trust, which runs the Royal Oldham and hospitals in Rochdale, Bury and North Manchester, saw complaints rise from 699 in 2009-10 to 724 in 2010-11.
The figures are from data submitted to the NHS Information Centre and concern written complaints.
