The Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust received slightly more complaints last year than the year before.

Figures from the Health and Social Care Information Centre have revealed the volume of official written complaints received by hospitals in England between April 2015 and March 2016.

Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust received 625 complaints in 2015-16, an increase of 1.3% compared with the 617 received in the previous year.

It means the Trust is well below the 6% average for the level of complaints it received last year.

Andrea McCourt, from the Trust’s Patient Advice and Complaints team, said: “We encourage as much feedback from our patients as possible about their experience of care within the Trust, of all types. While the majority is very positive about the care we deliver we also know the feedback highlights areas where changes may be needed to improve our services.

“When resolving a complaint, our first action is for a senior colleague to contact the complainant to check out the detail of their concerns. We then offer a variety of ways to respond to the complainant and the way in which we respond is very much led by the wishes of the complainant. For example some people prefer a written response to their complaint, other people prefer a face to face meeting. We investigate all concerns thoroughly with the aim of identifying learning and what actions we can take to try to ensure they don’t happen again.”

When it came to reasons for complaints the most common cause in the West Midlands NHS area was patient care including nutrition and hydration (22% of non clinical treatment complaints) followed by communications issues (16%).

Across England as a whole hospital trusts received 77,208 complaints in 2015-16, the equivalent of 210 every single day.

This was, however, a slight improvement compared to 2014-15 when there were five per cent fewer complaints across the comparable trusts.