BackThe Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman’s Office published its final Annual Report of the Assembly Ombudsman/Commissioner for Complaints (AOCC) for the 2015-16 year.
Northern Ireland’s Health and Social Care Trusts must collaborate more and share knowledge in an effort to improve their handling of Serious Adverse Incidents and complaints to improve the outcomes for patients.
That is the call from the Northern Ireland Ombudsman Marie Anderson as she publishes the Annual Report of the Assembly Ombudsman for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Complaints 21015 – 2016.
Complaints about health and social care providers continue to dominate the work of the Ombudsman. In the year 2015-16, 45% of the 740 new complaints received by the office of the Assembly Ombudsman and Commissioner for Complaints for Northern Ireland were about patient experiences in the health and social care sector, up from 41% in 2014-2015 and 38% in 2013-2014.
While the figure of 45% in itself is substantial, the impact on the workload of the Ombudsman’s office is considerably more. Given the complexity of health and social care complaints which require expert advice and can often involve a range of providers, it is estimated that at any given time 80% of the workload of the office is focussed on assessing and investigating health sector complaints.
In keeping with previous years, the overriding issue of complaint was a failure in clinical care and treatment. However, the Ombudsman also found that inadequacies in the complaint handling and communications process across the sector were
significant issues. Of the complaints received that warranted investigation, 56% related to Health and Social Care Trusts with a significant number of investigations in this year (26%) relating to GP Practices.
The report published today, is the final Annual Report of the Assembly Ombudsman for Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Complaints. As a result of the Public Services Ombudsman (Northern Ireland) Act 2016, these two offices ceased to exist on 31 March 2016 and were replaced from 01 April 2016 with the office of the Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman and the Northern Ireland Local Government Standards Commissioner.
Source: Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman’s Office
