NHS Lothian slammed for calling patients customers

[Northerner]

Lothian health bosses have been urged to backtrack on a controversial name change that has seen patients branded ?customers?.

The NHS Lothian complaints department has been renamed the ?Customer Relations and Feedback Team? following a recent overhaul of the way the health board deals with unhappy users of its services. Staff have also had job titles changed to reflect the rebrand.

The health board said the name change was necessary as it dealt with a series of groups, not just patients, and those who wanted to give positive comments had been confused when passed to the complaints team, which dealt with all feedback.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/health/nhs-lothian-slammed-for-calling-patients-customers-1-2985646

 

[missclb]

Wow! I'm an Edinburgh lass, so that was my neck of the woods before I moved to sunnier climes. Jeez ? I'm not liking that phrase 😡

Stuart Wilson, NHS Lothian?s director of communications ? and head of the customer relations team, said: ?The term customer is correct because the feedback we receive is not just from patients. In many cases our feedback comes from carers, relatives of patients, politicians, lobby groups and members of the public who have a comment to make on our services.?

Er, no Mr Wilson, none of the above are customers!!