BBC article on NHS complaint satisfaction

An interesting if not somewhat depressing article on the BBC website today regarding people's satisfaction with the NHS complaint's process. The first part of the article from Nick Triggle is quoted below. 

The NHS still has a long way to go to improve the way it handles complaints, although there are signs of improvement, a survey suggests.

The NHS has been heavily criticised over its complaints system in the wake of the Stafford Hospital scandal.

The poll of 4,000 people in the UK by Populus for consumer group Which? found just a quarter were happy with the way their complaint had been handled.

But this was a rise from 16% two years ago.

The survey showed more than half felt their complaint had been ignored - more than in other parts of the public sector - and 43% were "dissatisfied" with the outcome.

But four in 10 who have had a problem reported not even complaining - although this was again a slight improvement on the picture two years ago.

The comments are quite interesting but mostly about whether people should make a complaint or not rather than the actual process of making a complaint. 

What many NHS complaints departments don't seem to realise is that by poorly handling complaints ie by not acknowledging the complaint, by not keeping the complainant informed of any delays etc then the less likely it is that the complainant will be satisfied with the response. 

Poor complaint handling in my experience increases the chance that a complainant who started off just wanting an apology and an assurance that it wouldn't happen again will decide they want compensation as well. 

The handling of a complaint isn't rocket science, it just requires some decent administration and staff who value the complaints being made.

Regardless of what the NHS actually put in the response if they could just handle how they take and then deal with the complaint they could save themselves a lot of trouble.