Can we make it better?

The range and nature of patient complaints that resulted from the services provided in Southland base hospital over a 1-year period were studied. The data were assessed in the hope that they would provide new and important information to further develop quality assurance in the hospital service. There were 146 complaints, 15 of which were significant. Ten of these involved clinical care standards. There were 132,400 patient contacts during this time. The most common complaints related to the attitudes of health professionals, as perceived by the patient, and about information and other aspects that pertained to their individual care. These patient complaints did not provide unique information but would be useful if combined with other methods to determine patient dissatisfaction with the service provided.