Formal complaints at an eye hospital: a three‐year analysis

Purpose – Complaints can provide the health provider with vital information on its performance and can point towards areas for improvement. The purpose of this study was to undertake a retrospective study of all formal complaints in an eye hospital over a three‐year period in order to look at the complaint rate, demographics, their nature, how they were resolved and the lessons learned.Design/methodology/approach – Complaints received were entered onto the complaints module of the DATIX database system. Formal patient complaints between April 2003 and March 2006 available on the DATIX database were analysed retrospectively.Findings – The study found that there were total of 94 formal complaints out of 186,323 attendances at the hospital. The overall complaint rate was 5.09 per 10,000 attendances. 52(55.31 per cent) complaints were about rescheduling or cancellation of appointments. Complaints related to communication failure were 17(18.08 per cent) followed by clinical complaints, which totalled 13 (13.82...