Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Julie Mellor said:

‘We want people who are not satisfied with the response from the NHS to their complaint to know that the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is here for them. We are a free and independent service and are the final adjudicator on complaints about the NHS in England. Where we uphold complaints the NHS must put things right.

‘We completed 1,778 investigations of complaints about the NHS in England in 2013/14 and are currently completing eight times more health investigations than last year. This is increase is because we are modernising our service to give more people a final adjudication on their complaint.’