The Southern DHB wants to improve the way it communicates with patients after complaints about letters arriving late or giving patients the wrong instructions. The Southern District Health Board wants to standardise its communication with patients after finding that it's the source of 28 per cent of the complaints it receives. Doctors send letters to patients for all sorts of reasons – from diagnosis information to treatment plans – with 350,000 letters sent in the past year, or 1800 a day. Executive director of clinical governance and quality Gail Thompson said: “People have tried to make lives easier, but in doing so, it made things more complicated.”READ MORE:* West Coast health board in privacy blunder involving medical information* District Health Board complaints: Is yours the most complained about in the country? * Life expectancy lost in 'unacceptable' Southern DHB urology treatmentComplaints about the letters ranged from people getting their treatment instructions by post too late or being sent to the wrong hospital, to inappropriate wording.

Source: Stuff May 09, 2021 02:15 UTC