28/10/2013

Report Due Of NHS Complaints Review

A review into how the NHS in England handle complaints is to be published today.

The public inquiry was launched by in March this year by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and led by Labour MP Ann Clwyd.

The review was tasked with finding "common standards" to apply to complaints handling, and how information could be used to improve services.

Ms Clwyd broke down during an interview on BBC Radio 4's World at One programme in December 2012 about the care her husband Owen Roberts had received before his death a few months earlier.

She said he had died "like a battery hen" at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, describing the "coldness, resentment, indifference and contempt" of nurses who treated her late husband.

At the launch of the review, she said: "We all hope that when we go into hospital the care we receive will not give us cause to complain.

"However when something does go wrong, it must be easy for patients and their carers to speak up, without fear.

"I am determined that the result of this review will be a system that ensures that any complaint or concern that patients or whistleblowers make will be listened to and acted upon."

(MH/CD)

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