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  Annual Review 2002/2003

Annual Review 2002/03
Contents:
Strong voice needed
New website
Quality of care for older people in hospital
Complaints
Enquiries
Results of customer satisfaction survey 2002/2003
Council members attendance
Financial statement
Publications

Complaints

This year we assisted 268 complainants to pursue complaints. The main issues are detailed in the following graph.

The Health and Personal Social Services Complaints Procedure was introduced on 1st April 1996. Its primary function was to deal with complaints about health and social services quickly and efficiently, and to use complaints and the lessons learned from them to improve services.

Over the last seven years the procedure itself has become much too complicated and protracted. Whilst we agree that many Trusts try hard to resolve complaints, our contact with complainants shows that many of them simply give up because of unacceptable delays, defensive attitudes and a lack of transparency and objectivity.

 
We are concerned that, of those complainants that have sought our advice and assistance, more people complain about the services provided by their General Practitioner than almost any other category. These people describe to us a real sense of vulnerability when complaining about the services their General Practitioner provides, which very often means complaining directly to the Doctor in question. They are concerned about the consequences of complaining about their Doctor, which may include being removed from the patient list.

Two major reviews of this complaints procedure have taken place and have recommended a number of improvements which we would wish to see being made:

  • More emphasis on complaints prevention, requiring more investment and commitment to staff training
  • More attempts to resolve complaints on the spot, requiring greater accessibility to staff with the appropriate skills and training
  • Complaints about GPs’ should be made directly to someone who is independent of the GP’s practice
  • More use of properly trained conciliators
  • An automatic right to an independent review if the process of local resolution is not properly and thoroughly conducted, or takes an excessively long time to complete
  • Better monitoring of complaints to ensure that complaints are used constructively to highlight and rectify deficiencies in the quality of services, and to ensure that real lessons are learned from complaints
  • Better monitoring of complaints made against primary care practitioners, which would require detail on the number of complaints, the issues and the outcomes
  • The appointment of a regional body to deal with independent reviews
  • All information relevant to the investigation of a complaint by an independent review panel, including the clinical assessors’ reports, should be made
  • Recommendations from independent review panel should be enforced

Enquiries

We handle a significant number of telephone enquiries from the public each year. In 2002/03 this number exceeded 1250.

The majority of these calls are relating to Health and Social Services issues. However, there are a number of calls enquiring about telephone numbers of other organisations, as the caller was unable to find the numbers in the telephone directories. This has been demonstrated by the Council and has been highlighted to the various organisations concerned to take action.

Below are examples (one month period) of the type of telephone enquiries:
Type of enquiry
No
Telephone numbers of organisations (HSS and others)
76
Social Security issues
15
Post Mortem Issues
3
Advice on how to make a complaint
10
Advice about waiting times
9

The Council regularly monitors the incoming calls and the information that is given to the public by the Council staff. Reception staff answer the phone and will give out telephone enquiry numbers, all other enquiries are passed to a senior member of staff.

 
Results of customer satisfaction survey 2002/03

This year we carried out a telephone survey of the people we had assisted with complaints.

We will use the results to try to improve our service.

No complaints about our service were made this year.

Council members attendance at Council Meetings
1 April 2002 to 31 March 2003
Member
Scheduled Meetings
Actual Attendance
Mrs A Adams
11
10
Mrs E Askham
11
2
Cllr G Brophy
11
0
Cllr EJ Campbell
11
2
Cllr J Convery
11
0
Mr B Coulter
11
8
Cllr A Crowe
11
5
Cllr D Curran
11
3
Ms M Deasy**
8
0
Cllr G Dunn
11
5
Cllr D Gilmore
11
1
Mr C Graham
11
6
Mrs AE Hamilton
11
5
Dr M Harriott
11
5
Mr K Harris**
10
1
Member
Scheduled Meetings
Actual Attendance
Ald M Henderson
11
3
Mr B Henning
11
7
Mr J Hutchinson
11
8
Mr B Henry
11
3
Cllr J Lockhart
11
4
Cllr N Long
11
1
Mr B Marshall
11
5
Mrs S McGarry
11
5
Miss P McMillan
11
10
Cllr C McMillen
11
0
Mr EG Monds
11
9
Cllr M Moore
11
3
Mrs M Muldoon
11
6
Mrs M Neill
11
4
Ms M Patterson
11
7

**= resigned in 2003

Financial Statement
Revenue Income and Expenditure Account for Year Ended 31 March 2003
2002/03
£000
2001/02
£000
INCOME  
Allocations Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety
294
294
  Miscellaneous income
1
6
  Funds transfer from previous year
27
24
Total Revenue Income
322
324

 

EXPENDITURE

  
  Salaries
184
162
  Establishment expenses
30
36
  Premises and Fixed Plant
77
87
  Other expenses
7
12
Total Revenue Expenditure
298
297
Total Income less total expenditure
24
27

 

REVENUE SURPLUS FOR COUNCIL CONTROLLED ACTIVITIES
24
27

Publications

Click here to read our Guide To leaflets and the Register of Research Reports

 

 
Eastern Health and Social Services Council, 1st Floor, Lesley House, 25-27 Wellington Place, Belfast, BT1 6GQ
Freephone: 0800 917 0222 Fax: (028) 9032 1750 Minicom: (028) 9032 1285
E-mail:ecouncil@ehssc.n-i.nhs.uk

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