Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ11: Hospital Authority's complaint handling system
Following is a question by the Hon Chung Kwok-pan and a written reply by the
Acting Secretary for Food and Health, Professor Sophia Chan, in the Legislative
Council today (December 16):
Question:
Recently, a member of the public has complained to me that the operation he
underwent at Yan Chai Hospital under the Hospital Authority (HA) a few years ago
had adverse effects and he subsequently lodged complaints repeatedly with HA,
but to no avail. He also said that he received a written reply only or even no
reply after each complaint, and no healthcare personnel had ever explained to
him face-to-face. As a result, both he and his family members experienced
emotional distress. Regarding the handling of complaints by HA, will the
Government inform this Council:
(1) whether it knows the number of complaints received by HA from patients and
the number of cases in which the complainants appealed to HA's Public Complaints
Committee (PCC) against the outcome of the handling of their complaints, in each
of the past three years, with a breakdown by the public hospital concerned and
content of the complaint; whether there was an upward trend for such numbers of
complaints in the past three years; if so, whether HA has looked into the
reasons for that, and whether HA will review the quality of healthcare services
provided by public hospitals;
(2) given that at present, the target response time for complaints by public
hospitals is within six weeks (for complex cases, within three months), while
that by PCC is within three to six months, whether it knows the respective
average and longest time taken by public hospitals and PCC to respond to
complaints in each of the past three years; of the reasons why some cases took
longer time to respond; whether HA will take measures to shorten the response
time for complaints;
(3) whether it has reviewed its publicity for the existing channels available
for lodging complaints about services provided by public hospitals; whether it
will step up such publicity, and provide more complaint channels; and
(4) whether it knows if HA will review the procedure for PCC to handle
complaints and improve HA's approach for communicating with complainants,
including handling complaints in a more humane manner, e.g. in addition to
giving a simple written reply to the complainant, arranging a doctor to meet
with the complainant to explain the situation relating to the complaint, so as
to avoid the complainant experiencing emotional distress due to the feeling that
his complaint has not been seriously handled; if HA will review, of the details;
if HA will not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
President,
The Hospital Authority (HA) has a two-tier system to handle complaints from
patients and the public. The first tier is at the hospital level which is
responsible for handling all complaints lodged for the first time. If the
complainants are not satisfied with the outcome of the complaint, they may
appeal to the second tier, that is the Public Complaints Committee (PCC) of HA.
PCC is established under the HA Board responsible for independently considering
and deciding on all appeal cases and putting forward recommendations on service
improvement to HA. Members of PCC are not employees of HA and, by virtue of
their independent status, will handle all complaints fairly and impartially.
My reply to various parts of the question raised by the Hon Chung Kwok-pan is as
follows:
(1) There were 2 528, 2 644 and 2 394 complaints handled by public hospitals in
2012/13, 2013/14 and 2014/15 respectively. Annex 1 sets out the breakdown of
complaints by cluster and category.
PCC handled 219, 289 and 281 appeal cases in 2012/13, 2013/14 and 2014/15
respectively. The following table sets out the breakdown of the cases by
category:
2012/13 2013/14 2014/15
------- -------
-------
Medical services
149 206
206
Staff attitude
32
38
28
Administrative matters
28
33
39
Others
10
12
8
Total
219 289
281
Overall speaking, the number of cases (including complaints and appeals) handled
by HA over the past three years was generally stable. In the course of complaint
handling, if there are areas for improvement identified in the service delivery
or healthcare system, HA will take appropriate follow-up actions to ensure
service quality.
(2) HA sets a target response time in complaint handling so as to give
complainants an idea of the approximate processing time for their complaints.
The hospital and PCC will, upon receipt of the complaint cases, handle them as
soon as possible. The hospital and PCC will also keep the complainants informed
of the progress through interim replies at regular intervals.
The target response time for the first tier of the complaint handling system is
six weeks, and that for complex cases is three months. HA does not maintain
statistics regarding the average time and longest time taken by hospitals to
respond to patient complaints.
The PCC's target response time is three to six months, with complex cases
possibly taking longer time. Annex 2 sets out the time taken by PCC in handling
appeal cases in the past three years.
The appeal cases handled by PCC vary in complexity. Complex cases take longer
time to process and the average processing time is about five months. The three
appeal cases with the longest processing time as shown in Annex 2 are very
complex. To ensure that the decisions made were fair and impartial, PCC had to
conduct in-depth investigation, including inviting medical experts of different
specialities to provide professional views on clinical care, or conducting
multiple clarifications or evidence collection.
(3) HA promotes its two-tier complaint handling system to the public through a
number of channels including publishing pamphlets, uploading relevant
information to its website, meeting patient groups on a regular basis, reporting
annually the work progress to the HA Board, setting up an enquiry hotline, and
displaying posters in public hospitals to introduce the channels for lodging
complaints with and providing feedback to Patient Relations Officers. The public
at present can already lodge complaints with HA through multiple channels,
including by letters, emails, faxes, telephone calls and in-person meeting the
relevant staff.
(4) In the course of complaint handling, the hospital will proactively follow up
on the cases having regard to multiple factors like the nature of the
complaints, the circumstances of the cases as well as the request of the
complainant. Apart from giving response to the complainants, the hospital will
also make arrangements for the complainants/patients concerned to meet the
doctors where necessary so as to provide the appropriate assistance.
As a matter of fact, it is a routine practice for hospitals to arrange meetings
of medical professionals with patients (or/and their family members) where
necessary to explain to them their medical conditions and treatment plan,
irrespective of whether the patients have lodged any complaint. If the patients
or complainants are found to be emotionally disturbed, the hospital will, with
the patient's consent, arrange appropriate referral in accordance with their
clinical conditions, including recommending follow-up in relevant specialities
or psychological counselling service.
Ends/Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Issued at HKT 18:25
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LCQ11 Annex 1
LCQ11 Annex 2