{"id":310396,"date":"2025-08-01T22:44:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T22:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/310396\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T22:44:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T22:44:11","slug":"complaints-against-northern-irelands-health-trusts-hit-five-year-high-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/310396\/","title":{"rendered":"Complaints against Northern Ireland\u2019s health trusts hit five-year high \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Complaints against Northern Ireland\u2019s health trusts<\/a> have hit a five year-high, according to the latest figures released by the Department of Health (DoH)<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In 2024\/25, there were a total of 8,805 complaint issues against the north\u2019s five health trusts and ambulance service<\/a>, which is also classed as a trust. <\/p>\n

The figure marks a five-year high and represents a rise of 76% since 2020\/21 as well as a 5% increase on the previous year. <\/p>\n

Read more: <\/b>Patients face GP disruption as minister announces new waiting list role<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Dublin<\/a>\"Taxpayer<\/a><\/p>\n

Some complaints can be received in a single communication but refer to multiple areas and these are counted separately as specific \u2018complaint issues\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In 2024\/25, the trusts received 5,483 complaints, from which a total of 8,805 complaint issues arose.<\/p>\n

Over half of these issues related to acute services (4,718), followed by family and child care (889) and maternal and child health (796).<\/p>\n

The highest number of complaint issues (2,217) related to a patient\u2019s \u2018quality of treatment and care\u2019, with communication (1,922) and staff attitude or behaviour (1,300) the next largest areas. <\/p>\n

However, for the same period, the trusts received over four times the number of compliments (42,312) than they had in complaint issues. <\/p>\n

Almost half of the compliments related to the quality of treatment and care and a quarter pertained to staff attitude and behaviour. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A DoH spokesperson said: \u201cThe severe pressures on the health and social care system in Northern Ireland are well documented, with significant budget shortfalls and unacceptable waiting times for patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is accepted that public experiences of care too often fall short of the level everyone in the system wants to provide.\u201d<\/p>\n

The department highlighted that compliments \u201ccontinue to far outnumber the complaints\u201d.<\/p>\n

They added that the minister published a set of reset plans last month focusing on stabilisation, reform and delivery to secure \u201cbetter outcomes for patients\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Complaints against Northern Ireland\u2019s health trusts have hit a five year-high, according to the latest figures released by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[23523,17878,1144,1453,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-310396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-health-and-social-care","9":"tag-health-minister","10":"tag-northern-ireland","11":"tag-trust","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114955935303090845","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}