111 causing more trouble than it's worth

I'm finding that the organisations that I thought were there as advocates for the patients seem as evasive and uncooperative as the NHS. I recently emailed the Patient's Association and Healthwatch asking for advice on how best to present a complaint, Healthwatch just said ring the helpline, and the PA didn't reply at all.

Generally, it's best to summarise and keep complaints short and to the point, but in this case even a summary would run to several pages, and I'm not sure whether they allow you to add further information after they respond. I have a list of 120 questions, and that's without explaining the background to them first.

I spoke to the PA on the phone some time ago, but it was evident that she didn't believe a word of it, and the AvMA told me that I'm paranoid even though I made it plain that I have proof of what I say. After I spoke to a heart charity I found out that my consultant is their patron, so everything I said 'in confidence' has gone straight back to him.

Being called a frequent flyer isn't the half of it, I even had them flatly deny that I was ever taken to A&E at first. Now I'm supposedly on the waiting list for an operation, but my records say that I've already had it, so it's anyone's guess whether the appointment letter will ever arrive. I'm in no hurry, I've reached a point where I would never trust the NHS again, don't believe anything they say, and see no further point in trying to communicate with them.

The NHS constitution says:

"The NHS commits to ensure that you are treated with courtesy and you receive appropriate support throughout the handling of a complaint; and that the fact that you have complained will not adversely affect your future treatment."

but nobody can tell me what policies they have in place to ensure this.

Can't your GP help, crun? Surely he/she must know whether you've had the operation or not...

Go on NHS choices website and write a comment about your particular hospital, etc.
They will then get in touch with you, either over the internet or by phone.
Try to always put complaints in writing. Phone calls can be disputed.

Here's another site for you to write on.
They will pass your complaint on.

https://www.patientopinion.org.uk/

I'm not short of places to complain to, but I've already been on the receiving end of vindictive behaviour as a result of previous complaints. I complained to my MP two years ago about the GP being obtuse and uncooperative, I think that's what's behind the cardiologist denying that I had been to A&E a few weeks later. (I just got a letter from the DoH suggesting that I talk to my GP, which struck me as a good example of the obtuse behaviour I was complaining about.)

Last August I complained about being left with a patient who was threatening people, he was supposed to be under one to one supervision 24/7, but he wasn't. My punishment for that was to have the alarm on my heart monitor ignored for the rest of the week.

There's a CQC patient survey for that visit on the coffee table, but I'm not going to fill it in, because of the reprisals when I filled in the last one. The CQC keep insisting that the surveys are confidential, but previous experience has already taught me that they aren't. Quite apart from that, the nature of the complaint will identify exactly who I am.

I'm just not sure whether to write a great long rambling letter that will get ignored, or summarise and then get told that I can't elaborate with more detail later. I'd like to reserve the proof I have until after they've dug themselves a hole by lying even more, but I'm not sure whether that's giving them an excuse to reject it.

I know what you mean, crun. We went through the CQC complaints procedure about a home my mum was in. It took a few years, with meetings and minutes of meetings, etc., both my sister and I attending.
Eventually they told us that they had closed the complaint against the home and we had just been complaining about the way they had handled the complaint! They did not tell us, though, did they?

So we wrote to the MP of the area with the home and the area where my sister lived and my mother then lived. One was John Prescott, the other Alan Johnson. Never got a reply from either of them.

Patient Opinion lets others know how you have been treated, not just the hospital.

A dear friend phoned 111 last year, gave his symtoms and was diagnosed with Malaria, not that common in Brussels where he had just spent the weekend. They told him it would just 'go away' and to see a doctor after 3 months if the symtoms persisted,,,, Duh.

Was it malaria, felice? What happened?

crun sounds like the problems I had when I dislocated my shoulder in January last year. They denied I was vomiting non stop and hadn't mobilised me before discharge! There was no record of my vomiting and they said I was mobilised on the ward. They had tried to send me home. I live in my own in a large house with stairs, unable to walk unaided and couldn't use my crutches due to the shoulder.
I gave up in the end

We do not know Jen, he recovered and attended the Doctor the next time he came over. No trace of Malaria in his body.???
I was just talking to my real(our choice of title before i get a lot of PC twaddle thrown at me as I did last time) Mother, she managed to squirt Superglue in her eye last week, 5.5 hours to be seen in A&E, 81, heart problems, Diabetes etc.
Given cream and told to see GP, first appointment,,,, middle of MARCH, come on what is going on over there ?????

I rang Healthwatch this afternoon, and she suggested I should send an email instead, when I pointed out that the reply to my email had told me to phone she told me to go and contact another department.

More runaround.