BOLTON is bucking the trend for the number of written complaints sent to the NHS.

According to recent data released by NHS Digital, the number of written complaints about the country’s health service has increased by nearly five per cent.

However there has been a drop in the number of new complaints in Bolton over the past year.

NHS Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) oversees primary care in the community, including services such as GPs.

It received 49 per cent fewer new complaint letters from April 1, 2016 to March 31 this year.

In that time it received 17 new complaints and resolved 12, 16 per cent of which were upheld, 50 per cent partially upheld and 33 per cent not upheld.

This is compared to the same period last year where 43 per cent were upheld, eight per cent partially upheld, and 47 per cent not upheld.

Associate director of governance and safety at the CCG, Mike Robinson said: “We work hard to ensure we offer the best services for patients in Bolton. We welcome all feedback, whether positive or critical, and look into each one individually so we can respond to any issues that have been raised.

“We listen and use the lessons learned to continually improve.”

Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Bolton Royal Hospital, received 22 percent fewer new letters.

From April 1, 2016 to March 31 this year, the trust received 305 new complaints and resolved 364 – which includes ones received before this period.

Of those, just over 27 per cent were upheld, 39 per cent partially upheld and 33 per cent not upheld.

A spokesman for the trust added: “Whilst we hope that we would be able to resolve any issues before they became a complaint, we do encourage our patients to feed back to us formally if they feel that the care they received fell below expected standards.

“We act upon this feedback to continuously improve our services.”

There were 208,400 written complaints received by the NHS during 2016 to 2017, which on average means 571 written complaints were made every day.

In Greater Manchester, North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust received the most new complaint letters – a total of 2,532, an increase of 378 on last year.

However Lancashire was had the highest overall percentage increases in all written complaints with 5,300 complaints compared with 4,600 the previous year – a 14 per cent increase.

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