Response to today’s Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman report

Posted 22nd September 2015

Our Director of Nursing & Quality, Helen Porter, has commented on the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) report published today about its investigations of NHS complaints. Her statement explains how we encourage people to provide feedback and also sets the report in context – the PHSO report itself explains that cancer trusts may unfairly appear to have a higher percentage of investigations because of the way it defines ‘clinical episodes’ when making its calculations.

Helen Porter, Director of Nursing & Quality at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, said: “We place huge importance on the feedback we receive from our patients and their relatives, and encourage them to tell us how we are performing. The vast majority of this feedback is very positive and we are consistently one of the best-performing trusts nationally in patient surveys and the ‘friends and family test’. However, we fully recognise that we do not always get things right and when a patient or relative is not satisfied we want to learn from it and improve even further. If people are not satisfied with our response to their complaint, we advise them that they can appeal to the PHSO and we will learn from the PHSO’s findings.

“As the PHSO report itself makes clear, the data for trusts where a high proportion of patients are having cancer care is not directly comparable with other organisations as they may unfairly appear to have a higher percentage of investigations. This is because the percentage of investigations is calculated per 100,000 inpatient admissions or first outpatient appointments. However, the vast majority of cancer care is provided at subsequent outpatient appointments, and cancer inpatients tend to stay in hospital for longer. The PHSO also points out that trusts that are good at informing patients about their right to appeal to the PHSO may appear to have a higher percentage of investigations. We will review the PHSO’s findings to identify any lessons to be learnt.”