General Hospital complaints and response times (FOI)

​Request

I refer to a previous Freedom of Information response published on 11 May 2021 at the following link:

Patient complaints about Jersey General Hospital (FOI)

The number of complaints for the first four months of 2021 might indicate an increase of 20% compared with the previous year.

I request the following:

A

Please provide the number of complaints recorded on the system at the Jersey General Hospital between 1 January and 30 April 2020 to allow for a more accurate comparison of the recent dynamics.

B

Please provide the breakdown of the numbers of complaints for each year (2019, 2020 and 1 January to 30 April 2021) by hospital department (specialty).

C

What is the maximum response time for complaints according to the Hospital or Government of Jersey (GOJ) standard operating procedures for complaint handling? What percentage of all the complaints recorded each year was responded within the standard maximum response period?

Response

A

The number of complaints recorded on the system at the Jersey General Hospital between 1 Jan and 30 Apr 2020 is 75.

B

The breakdown of the numbers of complaints for each year by hospital department (speciality) are as follows:

Breakdown of complaints by hospital department (speciality)  

C

The maximum response time for complaints, in line with the GOJ Customer Feedback Policy should be 25 working days. However, some complaints can be significantly more complex, requiring a more specialist level of investigation at stage two or three and therefore take longer to conclude. In these cases, the customer is kept informed of the new timescales agreed between the complainant and the relevant department.

GOJ Customer Feedback Policy

The system used in HCS to record complaints is not yet fully aligned to the new GOJ customer feedback policy timeframes so reports on a different timeframe of 28 days.

The following is the percentage of complaints responded to within 28 days:

2019 – 34%

2020 – 48%

2021 – 71% (January to March only as reporting is done two months in arrears)