Healthcare Commission apologises for targets failure

The Healthcare Commission, the public body that deals with complaints regarding NHS services in England, has apologised after it revealed it was missing its own targets for dealing with the complaints within an acceptable period of time.

Although there had been an “unprecedented” increase in the number of cases brought to the commission’s attention, the organisation has been failing to meet its target of dealing with 95 per cent of cases within a year.

There are some 900 current cases that have been with commission staff for a longer period, it was revealed.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Marcia Fry, head of the healthcare department at the Healthcare Commission, stated: “Certainly we’re not meeting our own targets and we’re very sorry for the additional distress that we’re causing people as a result of that.”

“We’re putting more people into doing it and we are investing a lot of the Healthcare Commission’s resources to do it, but at the end of the day it’s a people business,” she added.

Ms Fry concluded by saying that although the commission continued to receive between 600 and 800 cases each month, more work was being done to help address problems in the NHS at a more local level.

The commission’s strategic goals include promoting a better understanding of health and healthcare for the public, while safeguarding NHS users by acting “swiftly” on complaints and providing authoritative information.

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