Health professionals, particularly doctors and consultants, rarely engage wholeheartedly with patients complaining about their services, the Ombudsman said yesterday. At a conference on "Handling Complaints in the Health Services", Mr Kevin Murphy said he had, in dealing with recent complaints, observed a "marked reluctance" on the part of doctors and consultants to engage in complaints procedures.
He revealed that complaints to his office in relation to the health services almost doubled last year.
Mr Murphy told delegates attending the conference organised by the Eastern Regional Health Authority that things go wrong in every organisation; the critical issue was how people reacted in such instances. "Responses can, and do, exacerbate a complainant's sense of grievance," he said.
He said that in a study of complaints about GPs in the UK it was found, in almost 80 per cent of responses to complaints, that medics blamed either the disease process or other people. "We do not have the benefit, so far as I am aware, of similar studies in this administration but my own experience would not tend to indicate that things would be very different," he said. "I have rarely found that health professionals, particularly doctors and consultants, engage wholeheartedly with patients' complaints . . . complaint handling is invariably seen by medical staff as very much a matter for the administrators, even though the kernel of the complaint might well involve particular doctors or consultants. In recent complaints made to my office I observed a marked reluctance on the part of the relevant doctor or consultant to engage in the complaint process."
Mr Murphy said in his experience it was rare for a complainant to be motivated by prejudice or malice. "All too often a failure or unwillingness to say "sorry" at an early stage is the reason for complaints proceeding further through the system than is really necessary or appropriate. Apologies can be given without an admission of blame or liability in relation to the substance of the complaint."
Referring to a a proposal by the Government to extend his jurisdiction to clinical judgments, he said it would be premature to do so without a well established and functioning statutory complaints system. This extension of his remit "should not be ruled out of consideration at a future date".
The chief executive officer of the ERHA, Mr Donal O'Shea, said the authority was undertaking a review of its complaints procedures and staff dealing with complaints would begin training courses next month.
"We must create an environment in which complaints are seen as opportunities to improve services and systems," he said.