Northern Trust records 896 complaints over nine months as health service concerns rise across NI
Almost 900 complaints were made to the Northern Health and Social Care Trust during a nine-month period, as new figures reveal a sharp rise in complaints across Northern Ireland’s health service.
The Northern Trust recorded 896 complaints between April and December 2025 — 17% of the 5,222 received by all six Health and Social Care Trusts, including the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service.
Across Northern Ireland, the total was up by 1,208 — or 30% — from 4,014 during the same nine months of 2024. The Department of Health says the figures are in keeping with an increasing trend in complaints.
Northern Trust response times
The figures also show how quickly patients and families received a substantive response — the outcome of their complaint following investigation.
Of the Northern Trust complaints included in the response-time figures, 442 received a substantive response within 20 working days, while 454 took longer. That means just over 49% were answered within the 20-day timeframe.
The Northern Trust nevertheless performed better on this measure than the Northern Ireland average, where only 45% of substantive responses were provided within 20 working days.
Belfast Trust recorded the highest proportion answered within 20 working days at 59%, while Western Trust had the lowest at 23%.
The Northern Trust took an average of 29.3 working days to provide a substantive response, compared with a Northern Ireland average of 32.3 days. Its median response time was exactly 20 working days, the same as the regional median.
Across Northern Ireland, 6% of substantive responses took more than 100 working days.
Under the complaints policy operating during the period covered by the figures, Trusts were required to provide a substantive response within 20 working days. Where that was not possible, a holding response explaining the delay was to be issued within that period.
Complaints and individual issues both rise
A single complaint can contain several separate concerns, which are recorded as individual “complaint issues”.
Across Northern Ireland, the 5,222 complaints received between April and December contained 9,281 individual issues — up 42% from 6,519 during the corresponding period in 2024.
The longer-term figures also show complaint issues had already been rising, from 5,005 during 2020/21 to 8,805 in 2024/25. However, the latest nine-month total of 9,281 has already exceeded the total recorded during the whole of 2024/25.
More than half of the latest complaint issues — 5,283 or 57% — related to acute care. Family and Child Care accounted for 875 issues, Maternal and Child Health for 694 and Mental Health for 679.
Quality was the most common category of concern, accounting for 2,246 issues or 24%. Institutional issues accounted for 1,912 or 21%, while communication accounted for 1,826 or 20%.
Northern Trust receives more than 8,500 compliments
The figures also provide a markedly different measure of patients’ experiences, with tens of thousands of compliments recorded by health trusts.
The Northern Trust received 8,501 compliments during the full 2025/26 financial year — 19.1% of the Northern Ireland total and the second-highest number of any Trust, behind Belfast Trust’s 20,211.
Across all six Trusts, 44,586 compliments were recorded. More than half — 23,583 or 52.9% — praised the quality of treatment and care, while 8,786 related to staff attitude and behaviour and 4,595 to information and communication.
The complaints and compliments figures should not be directly compared as measures of satisfaction or dissatisfaction: complaints in the latest release cover nine months from April to December 2025, while compliments cover the full 2025/26 financial year, and the two statistics are collected differently.
New complaints system introduced
The Department of Health has also warned that the complaints figures are entering a period of significant change.
From 1 January 2026, all HSC organisations became subject to the Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman’s Model Complaints Handling Procedure, replacing the Department’s previous complaints guidance.
The new system has two stages. Stage One aims to resolve complaints at the frontline, usually within five working days, while Stage Two involves a full investigation and aims to provide a response within 20 working days.
Its introduction has created what the Department describes as a “break in the statistical series”, meaning care will be needed when comparing future complaint figures with those published under the previous system. The 2025/26 publication is therefore the final annual report covering complaints under the former Department of Health policy.
Complaints made before 1 January 2026 continue to be dealt with under the previous arrangements until they are concluded.
The Department has classified the latest complaints data as “Official statistics in development” and cautioned that the change in procedures and recording systems may cause disruption to the figures while the new arrangements become established.
For local patients and families, the latest figures show the Northern Trust dealt with almost 900 formal complaints during the nine months covered, while responding within 20 working days in just under half of cases. How that picture changes under the new complaints procedure will become clearer when the next set of statistics is published.
Further information on the statistics is available here.
