Revealed: The best (and worst) NHS hospitals according to YOU – and what to do if you’ve had poor care

Patients lodged more than 139,000 written complaints about NHS hospitals in England last year, a record for the current dataset, with figures showing substantial regional differences. The article says the numbers offer one measure of patients’ experiences, but do not by themselves prove that an area provides worse care, since population size, demand and complex specialist cases also affect complaint volumes.

Communication failures generated more than 42,800 complaints, while complaints about hospital waiting times rose by 42 per cent and those about appointments, delays and cancellations increased by more than a quarter. Greater Manchester recorded the most complaints, at 9,188; Hampshire and Isle of Wight recorded 3,630, and upheld more than four in ten, compared with just over a fifth in Greater Manchester. Across hospital services, 21 per cent of complaints were upheld. Separately, more than seven million treatments were outstanding at the end of August, and over a quarter of patients waited more than four hours in emergency departments last month.