Written question WQ84928

I expect all health bodies to encourage patients and their families to share their experiences, concerns and complaints. The 2014 Evans review into the NHS Wales complaints process stressed the need for complaints to be seen as a gift, to be used to learn and improve services. This has never been more important than during the Coronavirus pandemic which has seen vast changes in the way services have been provided. The NHS needs to understand whether these changes are working for their patients and one way of doing so is by investigating and learning from complaints.

The pandemic initially saw a decrease in the number of patient complaints followed by an increase. This decrease may be due to a number of factors, including the necessary reduction in treatments during the pandemic and anecdotal evidence that people were perhaps reluctant to complain at the start of the pandemic, as they did not wish to further burden the NHS.

As the NHS has started to open up and more people are receiving treatment it is only natural to see a rise in the number of complaints. NHS staff are still under enormous pressure with high absence rates and workloads which can impact on the care and treatment people receive. However, it is important to remember that every year significant numbers of people receive high quality care. The number of complaints made in relation to the number of patients treated is very small.