Complaints from patients about NHS GPs have rocketed in the past year. Nearly 40,000 people weren’t happy with the service in the last 12 months, which is an increase of 12 percent. The rise in the number of complaints has coincided with the controversial change in out of hours care brought about back in 2004 which has come under fire a number of times since. The changes meant that Primary Care Trusts are now in control of the provision of GP health services in the evenings and at weekends rather than GPs themselves and gave physicians the choice to opt out of working the extra hours in favour of a £6,000 pay cut. The majority chose the wage drop and the NHS has been criticised since for mistakes made by out of hours doctors. This large number of complaints may signal a rise in the number of people taking out quotes for private medical insurance to gain access to private healthcare services.


The figures, which have been released by the NHS Information centre, show that the category which received the largest amount of complaints was clinical care. Almost 15,000 cases were reported where such instances as failure to refer a patient correctly to a consultant occurred. It is this sort of experience that may encourage people to look for an alternative to NHS treatment such as private health care to help avoid these errors. Private hospitals are much less busy and under less pressure than their NHS counterparts which reduces the chance that mistakes will be made and a higher quality of care to be possible. Private health insurance is a more affordable way of catering for private treatment, rather than forking out for the often large one off bills.