SICK prisoners in Worcestershire complain far more than the county’s NHS patients, according to the latest figures.

A total of 150 complaints were registered in 2010/11 across community NHS services including community hospitals, physiotherapy, speech and language therapy, school nursing, health visiting and breast screening.

By far the largest proportion (90 complaints and 60 per cent of the total) came from prisoners.

The next highest source of concern was community hospitals, which attracted 18 complaints (just 12 per cent of the total) and eight complaints each for podiatry and district nursing (five per cent each).

A meeting of the NHS Worcestershire board was told the 90 complaints from prisoners in Worcestershire in 2010/11 compared with 139 in 2009/10.

Prisoners can make a complaint by speaking to a member of staff, filling in a form or by writing a letter.

Prisoners at HMP Hewell complained mainly about not receiving notification of healthcare appointments. Investigations have since revealed that prisoners were not receiving appointment slips sent out the previous day.

The system has now been changed and as a result non-attendance at appointments had fallen from 22 per cent to 10 per cent.

At HMP Long Lartin there were “significant” numbers of complaints from prisoners who had not received their “in possession” medication, the report said.

This is medication prisoners are allowed to keep in small quantities for their own use. A pharmacy technician has now been appointed and training given which has since reduced the volume of such complaints, according to the report.

Figures also show that there were about half as many compliments in 2010/11 as there were the year before – 757 compliments in 2010/11 compared to 1,458 in 2009/10.

All complaints were gathered by the patient relations service which was formed in April last year when NHS Worcestershire’s Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) joined up with the Complaints Service. The new service set up a free- post address to make it easier for people to send in their concerns and NHS leaders have cited improvements in the complaints mechanism for the increase in complaints.

Simon Trickett, trust director of communications and corporate development, said: “Data from complaints, comments and compliments is only one of the ways in which we can understand the experience of patients.”

Your Worcester News reporter was the only member of the media to attend the meeting.