2,000 complaints are received by hospitals

More than 2,000 complaints were made to hospitals in the Black Country and Staffordshire in just 12 months, it can be revealed today.

Figures show how some hospitals are receiving more than 10 times as many complaints as others across the region.

Gripes raised by patients include delayed or cancelled appointments, standards of treatment and staff behaviour towards individuals. Others made claims about staff diagnosis and communication problems. Health chiefs vowed to heed any concerns raised.

The Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust has received 611 complaints over the past year, with 564 of them related to care at troubled Stafford Hospital.

The breakdown includes 243 complaints about medical care, 176 about staff attitude and 140 over communication.

To help improve communication the trust said it was investing in a new IT system to automatically send patient discharge information to the relevant GPs.

Bosses say complaints are sub-categorised in order for patients' concerns to be better understood.

The number of formal complaints for Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust fell compared to the previous year, with 750 recorded over the same period — down by 117.

Trust spokeswoman Vanya Rogers said: "Our staff encourage our patients to raise concerns or complain if they are unhappy with any aspect of our service, and we try to solve any problems as quickly as possible locally, so that we are able to fix issues before they become big problems."

Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust saw complaints increase by 39 between April 2010 and March this year to a total of 332.

Director of nursing and governance Sue Hartley said concerns about staff attitude were taken very seriously and an associate director of nursing had been in post for several months focusing on patient experience.

The Dudley Group of Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust saw the number of complaints fall from 364 to 332.

The Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust received 66 formal complaints between October and December 2010 but did not reveal the total for April 2010 to March this year.

General care was at the top of the list, followed by clinical treatment. Wolverhampton trust chief executive David Loughton said all complaints received were investigated.