COMPLAINTS about a Worcestershire NHS trust to a health ombudsman have doubled in a year – one of the biggest increases in the country.

Figures published by the Health Service Ombudsman today show that NHS Worcestershire had the third highest increase in complaints in the country in 2010/11 when compared to the previous year.

Complaints increased from 25 in 2009/10 to 51 in 2010/11 – a 104 per cent increase.

Only two trusts had a higher increase in complaints to the ombudsman – Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust (119 per cent increase) and the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust (109 per cent increase).

Complaints about NHS Worcestershire, which holds the purse strings for NHS care, also includes complaints about GPs, dentists, pharmacists and opticians. Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which manages the county’s three main hospitals, received 52 complaints and the Worcestershire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, which has dissolved, received seven complaints (2010/11).

Hereford Hospitals NHS Trust received 18 complaints and NHS Here-fordshire 27.

Ombudsman Ann Abraham said NHS progress on dealing with complaints was “patchy and slow”, that the NHS was not still not “dealing adequately with the most straightforward matters” and that too many minor disputes were escalated to her office before being resolved locally.

The report, called Listening and Learning: The Ombudsman’s Review of Complaint Handling by the NHS in England 2010-11, shows there were over 15,000 complaints that year.

Relatively minor disputes about unanswered telephones or mix-ups over appointments ended up with the Ombudsman “because of knee-jerk responses by NHS staff, and poor complaint handling”.

An increased number of the complaints involved removal of patients from their GP practice’s list, sometimes done without warning.

The most common reasons for dissatisfaction about how the NHS handled their complaint were poor explanations and no acknowledgement of mistakes.

An NHS Worcestershire spokesman said: “We haven’t seen this report yet so it is difficult to comment on the detail.

"The report appears to refer to people who have issued a formal complaint and have not being satisfied with the way that it has been handled.

“The increase during 2010/11 relates to people making enquiries with the Ombudsman’s Office about their individual case and has risen from 25 during 2009/10 to 51 in 2010/11.

“The important issue for Worcestershire is that the Ombudsman didn’t uphold any of these, or find that there was any issue with the way that these complaints had been dealt with.

“The vast majority of complaints or enquiries are referred back from the Ombudsman for local resolution and that is what appears to have happened in all 51 of these cases during 2010/11.”