19/07/2013

Health Ombudsman Pledges To Reach More Cases

The health ombudsman has pledged to get to 10 times as many patient complaints than it did last year.

It follows criticism over how many cases the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman had managed to deal with in 2012.

The complaints service, the final port of call for patients in England who are unhappy with a hospital's original handling of their complaint, has now said it will investigate around 4,000 cases within the next year but with no extra money or staff.

Figures reveal that some 16,000 complaints were made to the ombudsman in 2012-13, of which it looked closer at 3,770. They eventually investigated 377 cases.

(MH)

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