Harnessing the power of language to enhance patient experience of the NHS complaint journey in Northern Ireland: a mixed-methods study.

Background: Good communication is consistently recognised as essential for effective complaint handling, while failures in communication correlate with risk of escalation. Nonetheless, communication in National Health Service complaint handling remains underexamined.

Objectives: To examine complainants' lived experience of the complaints journey through (1) micro-analysis of their communication with National Health Service representatives; (2) their self-reported expectations and experiences throughout the complaints journey; to survey patient perceptions of the culture of the National Health Service; to develop 'Real Complaints' - an evidence-based communication training resource.

Why affiliation matters: A conversation analysis of complaints calls to the NHS.

Objective: Callers making a complaint share their negative experience in complaint narratives that make relevant affiliation from an operator. We examined how call handlers' language choices affect both the progress of the call and the stance of the caller.

Methods: We identified episodes where affiliation is displayed or noticeably absent in a dataset of 95 complaints calls to the NHS.

A qualitative study of National Health Service (NHS) complaint-responses.

Background: Healthcare complaints are grievances that may be indicative of some system failures, individual failings, or a combination of both. Moreover, the experience of making a complaint, including its outcome, often falls short of patient expectations, particularly in relation to the interpersonal conduct of National Health Service (NHS) staff. Over half of unresolved (local) complaints are subsequently upheld by the ombudsman with others potentially resulting in costly litigation.

Traumatic journeys; understanding the rhetoric of patients' complaints.

Background: Research on patients' complaints about healthcare has tended to focus on the typology of complaints and complainants to homogenise complaints and better understand safety implications. Nonetheless, complaints speak to a broader spectrum of harm and suffering that go beyond formal adverse events. Complaints about care episodes can take considerable time and effort, generate negative energy and may leave a dogged 'minority' embittered.

Negotiating relevance in pre-operative assessments.

Preoperative assessments provide an essential clinical risk assessment aimed at identifying patient risks and requirements prior to surgery. As such they require effective and sensitive information-gathering skills. In addition to physical examination, the preoperative assessment includes a series of routine questions assessing a patient's fitness for surgery.