Medical Council: The number of complaints made by patients to more than 80 Irish hospitals over the past five years are being counted for the first time.
The count is being conducted through postal questionnaires which have been sent to the chief executives of 87 hospitals. In filling them out, chief executives are asked to indicate how many written complaints were made by patients over the period and how many of these complaints were specifically against doctors.
Those behind the study want hospital chiefs to tick boxes indicating the types of complaint made against doctors under a number of headings including clinical care, poor or inadequate communication and "morally wrong personal behaviour".
Officials have been specifically asked to list the number of times doctors were cited for incompetence/negligence, misdiagnosis/lack of diagnosis, adverse outcome or lack of hygiene, as well as the number of times they may have been complained about for being rude or inconsiderate, for poor or lack of communication, for physical or sexual abuse, failure to refer, for fraud or breach of confidence.
The research is being conducted on behalf of the Medical Council by the Health Services Research Centre at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). In a letter to the hospitals, the RCSI said all major hospitals in the Republic were being surveyed. "We are interested in the number of patient complaints made to hospitals in the past five years. We would like to find out what proportion and types of complaints are made about doctors and how many of these complaints are referred to the Medical Council," it says.
The plan is to use the results to improve the system of regulation of doctors in the State.
The research forms part of a larger study concerning public and professional views of the Medical Council. The only official data currently available on numbers of complaints patients make against doctors is from Medical Council records, rather than hospitals.
The Medical Council's most recent five-year term report, published last December, indicated a marked increase in the number of complaints made to it about doctors over the past five years. It said that 1,231 complaints were made to the council between 1999 and 2003, a 30 per cent increase in the number of complaints made to the council about doctors over the previous five years.