Patient safety could be at risk due to the poor way complaints over treatment are handled at NHS Grampian.
A leaked report has found failures to learn from mistakes made in hospitals could lead to errors being repeated.
The internal audit was carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers following a major shake-up in how patient complaints are handled at NHS Grampian.
It reveals a total of 1,676 complaints were made last year, with a further 919 people commenting on their hospital experience – good or bad – through the Feedback service.
Of these, a total of 194 extreme, major and moderate cases were upheld.
The report also found that in January this year, 58% of complaints had not been dealt with in the agreed 20-day period time.
A handful of patients waited between 80 and 100 days for a response.
The auditors found “significant pressure” on staff to respond within the time frame was leaving “very little capacity” to draw on lessons learned from complaints.
Poor training meant workers did not have the skills or confidence to work effectively.
The quality of letter writing to patients was also raised.
“Failing to analyse complaints (and other forms of feedback), identify and implement lessons learned means events may re-occur and creates a risk to patient safety and quality of care,” the report’s authors wrote.
“NHS Grampian cannot demonstrate the values of ‘caring, listening, improving’, which may result in reputational damage.”
A spokeswoman for the health authority said all feedback from patients and members of the public was taken very seriously.
She added: “The outcomes of the audit have been helpful to us and are already being actioned.
“We have already increased the capacity of our Feedback team and this will allow us to improve our performance so that we can respond more quickly to complainants and also work with services to fully embed the lessons we learn from the experience of patients”.
The results have emerged during a turbulent time for NHS Grampian.
Consultants have recently spoken out about the potential risk to patient’s lives posed by staffing shortages in the accident and emergency department at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
An investigation by Health Improvement Scotland into standards at the flagship hospital is due to start this week.