Would you feedback or complain about a poor experience of care?

A new Healthwatch England report highlights that a poll of 2,650 adults who had a poor experience of NHS healthcare last year shows over half didn’t take any action.

Although the right to make a complaint is part of the NHS Constitution, this new research warns that people have low confidence in the NHS complaints system and struggle to navigate it, which prevents them from acting when they have a poor experience.

Our own report, from research in 2023, regarding people’s awareness of how to give feedback in hospitals, showed that the majority of people did not know how to give feedback and had not heard of PALS (Patient Advice and Liaison Service) or the Friends and Family test. We also heard that people were reluctant to give feedback as they believed it might affect the care that they received. Our summary and the hospital responses to our recommendations are on our website: Summary – Involvement of people – feedback in hospitals – March 2024 – Healthwatch Surrey

We encourage Surrey residents to continue to contact us to share their experiences – we also share themes we hear with Healthwatch England. If people need support to complain about an NHS service, please visit our page about the Independent Health Complaints Advocacy Service.

The full Healthwatch England report can be found on their website: (https://www.healthwatch.co.uk/news/2025-01-23/nhs-complaints-system-lets-people-down-new-research-warns)