Healthcare consultant Vivienne Heckford explains why complaints about private care providers deserve industry attention.
In the often-quiet corridors of private healthcare, a patient’s voice can sometimes be drowned out by polished brochures, glowing testimonials, and promises of a personalised service. Yet it is precisely in this space – where care is commodified and expectations are high – that complaints must be treated not as nuisances, but as vital instruments of accountability, growth, incremental improvement and ethical practice.
Private care providers operate in a competitive marketplace where reputation is everything. However, the pursuit of excellence cannot be limited to glossy surface-level impressions. While positive reviews might attract new clients, it is the unresolved complaints that tell the story of service gaps, systemic issues, and ethical oversights. On occasions, these are swept under the rug or dismissed as rare anomalies or disgruntled voices. But ignoring these signals does more than damage individual trust – it erodes public confidence in the very notion of private care.
Different rules
Unlike public healthcare systems, private providers are not always bound by the same governmental planning and rules. This autonomy brings both opportunity and risk. It allows for innovation and personalised service but also creates a grey area where profit motives may be perceived as quietly overshadowing patient welfare.
In this environment, complaints should not be viewed defensively but embraced as a corrective compass. They offer direct insight into patient experience, organisational weaknesses, and the human cost of business decisions.
Elevating standards in private care begins with a cultural shift: seeing complaints not as threats, but as catalysts for change and improvement. Transparent, responsive complaints mechanisms must become non-negotiable elements of any private care operation. This includes not only proper documentation and timely responses but also meaningful analysis that leads to real change. Moreover, staff must be trained to see feedback – especially the negative kind – as part of a continuous improvement cycle, not as a personal failure, PR or financial risk.
The industry must also be willing to go beyond minimum regulatory compliance. Voluntary audits, patient advisory boards, and independent complaint adjudication services are just some of the measures that can ensure accountability. Shared learning and nationwide benchmarking practices support quality improvement. If private care truly seeks to position itself as a premium alternative, it must rise above the minimum and hold itself to higher, not lower, standards of scrutiny.
Ultimately, the measure of any care system – public or private – is how well it listens when things go wrong. Elevating standards in private care is not simply about better facilities or shorter wait times. It is about building trust, practising humility, and creating a system where every voice – especially the critical one of the patient – is heard, respected, and used to do better. For an industry built on the promise of care, there can be no greater calling.
As scrutiny of patient safety and transparency intensifies across UK healthcare, not least in the recent public inquiries, independent external complaint adjudication is a vital force in maintaining public trust and professional standards in the private sector.
Under scrutiny
Sally Taber, director at the Independent Sector Complaint Adjudication Service (ISCAS), said that healthcare is increasingly coming under scrutiny from commissioners, regulators and not least the patients.
“Taking complaints seriously and acting on them to improve standards and demonstrate commitment to high-quality care, is a must for the private healthcare sector,” she said, adding that ISCAS provides an independent, structured complaints process for unresolved disputes. For cases where a goodwill payment was awarded, the average was £843 for the 2024/25 period. While it does not offer compensation, it plays a critical role in early resolution and service learning.
She goes on to say that ISCAS has a memorandum of understanding with, and is signposted by, the Care Quality Commission, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales, Healthcare Improvement Scotland, the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, and the Private Healthcare Information Network, and helps providers demonstrate their quality credentials.
“Nevertheless, a gap remains: while nearly all independent providers in acute secondary care are ISCAS subscribers, only 17% of NHS Private Patient Units (PPUs) participate – despite the Paterson Inquiry recommendations for sector parity,” she said.
For providers, subscription to a recognised and reputable external adjudication service signals a commitment to accountability, transparency, and continuous improvement. The external adjudication service should help strengthen governance and quality assurance frameworks and reassure regulators and patients alike, that concerns are taken seriously. It should offer access to expert adjudication and mediation from a number of industry experts with different specialist backgrounds who can offer wide-ranging experience to support all types of healthcare complaints and disputes.
In a landscape where reputation, regulation, and responsibility intersect, healthcare organisations need a proven framework for managing complaints competently and fairly without involving the legal sector and its associated expense – and learning from them to improve quality.
