Complaints hit new high at Stafford Hospital

Hospital bosses have revealed they received more than 600 complaints relating to patient care in Stafford and Cannock over the past 12 months.

Total complaints figures for the past year show the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Tust has received 611 with 92 per cent of these — or 564 of them — related to care at Stafford Hospital. Between January and March 2011 the trust received 176 complaints alone.

But trust management say that poor staff attitude and communication — two of the three worst performing areas — are mirrored in national reports about other hospitals.

One "communication" complaint saw a patient undergoing a hysterectomy believing "insufficient opportunity" had been given to discuss it prior to it taking place.

Both categories of attitude and communication — along with that of medical care — remained in the top three for the five highest complaints categories between July 2010 and January 2011.

Associate directors for each of worst performing areas will tell hospital bosses how they intend to address issues with clinical managers in order to see a "rapid month by month reduction".

Over the past 12 months complainte have included 243 about medical care, 176 about staff attitude and 140 over communication.

To help improve communication problems, accident and emergency management at the Mid Staffordshire trust are now investing in a new IT system to automatically sent patient discharge information to the relevant GPs.

Issues related to staff attitude have shown a worrying rise throughout the year. In the first quarter there were 18, in the second 37, 46 over attitude in the third quarter and 58 during quarter 4.

Management at the trust admit complaints are routinely scrutinised and are currently being sub-categorised in order for patients' concerns to be better understood.

The latest statistics also show missed diagnoses no longer come out in the top five category of complaints.