"Patient complaints in Wathwood hospital"

Despite being a very good hospital, Wathwood has one major weakness - a very poor internal complaints system. There is a large number of staff and they live in very close proximity to service users over a long period of time. It is almost ridiculous to imagine that every staff member will handle every situation well.

A hospital with as good a reputation as Wathwood should be able to acknowledge this, and when isolated incidents occur over time they should be willing to handle them broadmindedly. However, my personal experience is that when a patient makes a complaint against an individual member of staff it immediately becomes a "us against them" situation, with staff members working together to "protect" their colleague, and the patient being made to feel a large amount of pressure from all sides.

The atmosphere created, that "staff members can do no wrong, and patient's complaints can not be taken seriously because, after all, they are mental health patients" seriously erodes the precious trust that in so many other ways the hospital works hard to establish.

In actual fact, a hospital as successful as Wathwood should have the confidence to handle patient complaints in an above board and fair way, and this would undoubtedly improve the service they provide.