Health service complaints rising, HSE figures show

Patients are making more than 80 complaints a day as dissatisfaction with the health service continues to rise, according to the annual report of the Health Service Executive.

A total of 9,289 complaints were made last year about HSE services, an increase of 11 per cent. One in four complaints was not dealt with within the target time of 30 days.

The main areas of grievance related to access to services (3,257 complaints), safe and effective care (3,199) and poor communication and information (2,014).

Complaints about voluntary hospitals were up 6.5 per cent to 11,459. Almost 80 per cent were dealt with within 30 days. The figure included 2,776 complaints about poor communication and information, 2,551 about access, and the same number about safe and effective care.

Assessment of children

Another 564 complaints were handled under the disability Acts in relation to children’s assessment of need for services. Patients dissatisfied with the investigation of their complaint requested a review on 183 occasions in 2015, a slight decrease on the previous year.

The report shows 205 contracts were awarded in excess of €25,000 by the health services, with a total value of €33 million, without a competitive process.

The birth rate in Ireland has fallen to its lowest rate in a decade, the report notes, but fertility rates are still among the highest in Europe. Last year, there were 22,113 marriages, of which 14,560 were religious ceremonies, 6,244 were civil ceremonies and 1,309 were humanist ceremonies. The HSE recorded 377 civil partnerships.

Almost 20,000 more patients were treated in hospitals, the vast majority as day cases, compared to 2014. One patient in four waited more than eight months for inpatient or day-case treatment, while 44 per cent of children waited longer than 20 weeks.

The HSE measures its performance across a wide spectrum of “key performance indicators”. The report shows it missed 54 of these targets and achieved 21 of them.

Comparing Ireland internationally, we rank in the bottom one-third in the OECD for women’s life expectancy, alcohol consumption, obesity in adults, asthma admissions, stroke deaths, the number of doctors and the number of hospital beds.