Questions sparked by low number of complaints about health and social care in Moray
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Concerns have been raised about whether the low number of complaints made about health and social care services in Moray tally with the reality.
From the start of October to the end of last year there were only 18 complaints.
Three of these were to Moray Council, while the other 15 were to the NHS, including eight relating to the GMED out of hours service which is based in Moray.
The low number of complaints was discussed at a meeting yesterday of the Moray Integration Board, which is the partnership between Moray Council and NHS Grampian that oversees health and social care locally.
Ivan Augustus, the carers' representative on the committee, stated they did not correspond with his experiences of talking to people in the community
Councillor Frank Brown (Elgin North, Conservative) agreed.
He claimed that his inbox was full of emails from residents concerned about health issues, such as the maternity service at Dr Gray’s Hospital and the difficulties associated with accessing a GP.
Cllr Brown first asked: "Have people stopped complaining?", before going on to outline an example of an elderly parson he knows in Aboyne who phoned for an ambulance through the night because of an asthma attack.
However, a vehicle did not arrive until 8am and the crew had been dispatched from Elgin.
Cllr Brown said: "You can’t call that anything other than failure."
Janette Netherwood, the corporate manager for Moray Health and Social Care (MHSC), told the meeting that complaints were often resolved at an early stage, while those who were still dissatisfied were given information on how to progress their grievance.
Simon Bokor-Ingram, The MHSC's chief officer, added that complaints could come to the service from a variety of different sources and it could be difficult to get them to the right contact.
Mr Bokor-Ingram added that it was important to log all complaints as they can help lead to service improvements.
The committee's members agreed that, in the future, reports should be clearer about what particular complaints related to.
They also agreed that a representative from the GMED service should give a presentation about how it records complaints.
