Ombudsman urges health professionals to listen to patients

Inadequate supervision and support of doctors in training, poor record keeping, and mishandling of patients' complaints emerged as the three major problems in the latest investigations of the health service ombudsman in his role as health service commissioner for England, in a report published last week.

The report includes 35 investigations about health services in England completed by the ombudsman's office between 1 April and 30 July 2000. Most of the cases arose from events that occurred in 1999.

Three investigations involved …