Almost 1,000 patients submitted complaints to Western Trust

ALMOST 1,000 patients submitted formal complaints to the Western Trust in the past year, according to the latest figures from the Department of Health.

While this was one of the lowest number of complaints received by any Trust in the North, with only the Northern Trust receiving less, it is a significant increase on the number of complaints it had received in recent years.

In the year 2022/23, the Western Trust received 989 official complaints.

This is up from 852 in 2021/22, and from 545 received by the Trust in 2020/21.

A total of 7,671 complaints were received by all Trusts in the North, including NIAS, in 2022/23.

That is up from 6,653 last year, with only NIAS seeing a drop in the number of complaints it received in the last year, and up from 5,005 in 2020/21.

The highest number of complaints received by Trusts across the North were regarding acute care, and this was also the case at the Western Trust, were 556 of its 989 complaints concerning acute care.

The second highest number of complaints at the Western Trust concerned maternal and child health, with 133 complaints lodged, followed by elderly care with 83 complaints, mental health with 75 complaints, and 59 complaints regarding family and child care.

The Western Trust also received 22 complaints regarding ‘health promotion and disease prevention’.

This is noteworthy, as only 30 complaints in total regarding this area were received across the North, with the three submitted to the Belfast Trust and five received by the Northern Trust.

A further breakdown of the figures show the subject of the complaint issues.

At the Western Trust, 225 of largest proportion of complaints received concerned ‘property/expense/finances’. This was also significantly higher than at other Trusts, with the Belfast Trust receiving 59 complaints in this subject area, and the next-highest number received by the Southern Trust at 32.