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Our data

Our data

Download a full breakdown of the complaints we handled about NHS organisations in England during Quarter 1 2019-20:

A note about our data

There are some caveats to the data we have included in this report that anyone relying on it for research or other purposes should note. In 2016-17, we introduced a new casework management system (CMS), although some of our older cases are still held in our previous system, Visual Files (VF). 

Due to the different ways of recording data on the two systems we have only used data from our live CMS when presenting our analysis of the issues people complain about. This ensures consistency and will enable us to carry out trend analysis over time. The proportion of health cases we investigated recorded on our old system that we closed in Quarter 1 2019-20 was just under 1% and will continue to decline.

Our casework management system records the date on which we have proposed to investigate a case rather than when we confirm an investigation. As our quarterly data provides a snapshot of our casework flow at a given time, in some cases following comments from the parties involved, we may decide not to investigate.

We have included data from both systems when we explain the recommendations we have made, to give as full a picture as possible of the resolutions of cases that have been concluded in this period.  

We have recently introduced a refreshed CMS, which has been designed with better data in mind. The advantages of better data are clear – it will give us, at a glance, a much richer understanding of what complaints brought to us are about. In the short-term there will be a period of crossover as we work through cases that we opened before we launched the new system. In the long-term, our improved data will mean we can publish more useful information in this report. 

We also undertake a full data audit at the end of each financial year, which can lead to some reclassification of a small number of cases. This means that the data presented in this report may differ slightly to our annual data for 2019-20. 

If you have any further comments or enquiries regarding this report please email researchteam@ombudsman.org.uk.

 

 

Download our report on Complaints about the NHS in England: Quarter 1 2019-20 [PDF 2.22 MB]