PLANS to help patients in Worcestershire feel more able to complain or give feedback on healthcare services in the county have won approval.

Patient’s watchdog Healthwatch Worcestershire has been working on a scheme to help patients feel more able to make a complaint where necessary as well as improving the way complaints are handled, responded to and acted upon.

This is part of a national project dubbed Suffering in Silence which was launched last year after the government asked Healthwatch to develop an overhaul of the health economy’s complaints system.

According to official records 174,872 complaints were made about the NHS between April 2013 and March 2014, but Healthwatch research has shown a further 250,000 incidents went unreported.

Speaking at a meeting of Worcestershire County Council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Wednesday, January 21, chairman of Healthwatch Worcestershire Peter Pinfield said: “Things could be far better for people in the county.

“Maybe the complaints system is not doing what it could do.

“What we would like to do is to go out to organisations such as the Clinical Commissioning Groups and the acute trust and spend some time looking at their complaints systems.

“We as a nation aren’t very good at speaking up and complaining – the aim is to create an atmosphere where people can feel positive about it.”

The project was prompted by the Stafford Hospitals scandal and the resulting Francis Report, which found very few complaints had been made about the hospital despite severe shortfalls in service.

One of the issues raised in the project so far is that patients may feel uncomfortable with complaining about healthcare services or may be too unwell or vulnerable to go through the complaints system.

It is hoped the study, which is still in progress, will result in complaints systems being made simpler and quicker and patients will be able to see actual changes made from their feedback.

Healthwatch Worcestershire’s chief executive Simon Adams said the organisation was frequently contacted by patients unhappy with how their complaints had been dealt with.

“One of the things that struck us when we were set up in 2013 was the amount of people contacting us complaining about how their complaint to their GP had been handled,” he said.

“On average we have one person a week who is at the end of their tether with some very complex issues.”

To view the latest report on the Suffering in Silence project visit www.healthwatch.co.uk/complaints/report.