Learning Not To Take Complaints Personally

Written by: R.A Black

This is a tough one, as even now several years into working in general practice, there are times when I read a complaint and it touches a nerve. The flippant way a patient will publicly state that the service you provide, the service you work your backside off for, is below standard can really grind one’s gears upon opening Outlook in the morning.

Recently, no thanks to the Daily Mail, there has been strongly worded GP bashing everywhere, and it pains me to see when I know full well how hard they work, sometimes losing out in their personal lives in the pursuit of their profession. I’ve known several GPs who have sacrificed family life and missed out on key moments because they were dedicated to their patients, and to see them so relentlessly criticised feels unjust to me.

I find myself at times wanting to respond honestly to NHS choices comments, to tell patients that they have absolutely no idea how difficult life in General Practice really is, and then I remind myself that until I came to work in GP land, I had no idea either.

We walk a lonely path as PMs, and we work in an environment that anyone outside of it cannot really understand. In my previous job I thought I got it, but I absolutely did not. The relentless and continually changing nature of the beast is so different from other working environments that unless you have work within it you simply wouldn’t believe it to be true - and we have to make our peace with that.

Patients, suppliers, cleaning companies, contractors, and anyone else who has anything to do with the practice don’t understand and they never will. People will always complain because it’s within our nature as human beings to do so, and they will certainly complain if they’re unhappy about something relating to their health.

Trying to explain primary care to an outsider is like trying to explain colour to someone born sightless – it can’t be done.

So, how do we handle the situation? Well aside from privately referring to anyone on the outside as ‘muggles’ I have a solution, and a way to approach the kind of complaint that makes your blood boil.

Remember that in most cases it’s not personal. Not matter how furious a tirade has been received, most of the time it really isn’t anything personal. Often in my experience, complaints come from a place of frustration, fear, or misinformation. People complain when they’re worried about their own health or the health of someone they love, they complain when they can’t get exactly what they want when they want it, and finally they complain when they’ve read in the Daily Mail that GPs are refusing to see patients face to face and are refusing to work 100 hours a week etc.

A lot of the time, a complaint can be dealt with over the phone using gentle reasoning rather than it becoming part of a formal complaint process. Call the patient, talk their complaint through, see if you can resolve it over the phone and reduce your own workload. Sometimes you find that they just need someone to talk to.

Think of the patient as a customer. Having worked in customer service I find this way of approaching complaints to be what works best. Remember that in some ways, they are customers really, and that their satisfaction does matter. We are told often enough to put the patient at the centre of everything you do and this is no less true of responding to and dealing with complaints. Put yourself in their shoes, no matter how unreasonable you think they are being, and try to see the situation from their perspective. Even better, you may be able to find a solution to their problem together, which in itself can be a major victory.

I try to look at all complaints and patient feedback as a way for us to learn and grow as an organisation. I now have a matrix of patient feedback, and within it I include learning points and actions; anything positive that has come from a complaint will be documented in that matrix. Why? Because not only will it be a useful resource when CQC come knocking, but also because it means that on the days when I receive an email of complaint, or the dreaded handwritten envelope that signals patient feedback, I can open the matrix and remind myself that some good does come of patient feedback.

We have improved our service and identified problems that wouldn’t have come to light had a patient not complained. We all know that you get the odd patient who seems to love an argument and will not listen to anything you say in defence of the service, but that’s ok, because they’re muggles, and they’re never going to understand.

We just have to learn to be ok with that.