‘Full of vexation come I, with complaint’: How to get the NHS treatment you deserve

When I was younger, there was a bit of a fuss about a book called “The Complete Revenge Kit”. Some people actually took to using it to send letters to their friends from, say, council officials warning that mines were being built under their homes and such like. It was featured in a TV news magazine show.

I feel that today’s public service users, and it applies to some privately provided essentails too (energy, banking, water) could do with an update. It would be called “The Complete Irritant Kit”.

You see, it is actually possible to secure NHS treatment, rouse your local council and sort your water/energy bill out. You just have to be a complete irritant about their failings. If in doubt, channel Shakespeare: “Full of vexation come I, with complaint.” Here’s how:

Kit Rule One: Never lose your temper. Very tempting when confronted with jobsworths when you’re in a jam. But it means you’ve lost. Being a complete irritant demands that one remains calm at all times. Justifiably furious? I’ve learned to keep it ice cold. It isn’t always easy.

This brings us to Rule Two: Write, don’t ring. Phones lines are purposely designed to encourage the breaking of Rule One. You can spend hours listening to disembodied voices telling you that your call is important, when it clearly isn’t. Just to get to that point requires navigating a multitude of infuriating menus.

Even the canned music seems designed to make you break Rule One. My local hospital, for example, serves up blandly jaunty dance beats as if its bosses are aspiring to organise the only empty beach party on Ibiza this summer. A half hour – no, ten minutes – guarantees a string of of angry expletives. I had to self-medicate with a half hour of Napalm Death’s greatest hits after making the mistake of calling it.

So, write. Send emails. Fill in contact forms. Send letters, perhaps even to the CEO of your NHS Trust, your local council or, in the case of the private sector, your bank, mobile phone provider or energy company’s complaints dept (and their CEO, too). A friend of mine would commonly write to every single director of organisations that were messing him around.

You will, of course, get fobbed off. But keep writing. Many organisations are required to respond to complaints by their regulators. Continually tweaking their nose will make you a serious irritation. A problem. Your opponent may work out that providing you with the service they are supposed to supply is the only way to make you go away. The squeaky wheel gets oiled.

Rule Three: Include all relevant details (reference numbers, address, name, DoB, etc) in every missive. Keep them short and to the point. One of my proudest moments was helping a neighbour with an obnoxious council planning department. Its behaviour was so bad they violated Rule One in the course of obeying Rule Two with a 3,000 word letter full of completely understandable outrage. I cut it down to 800. They won. True, most people don’t have the advantage of having a writer living down the road. But the internet is full of resources, even model letters. Make use of them.

Rule Four: Be prepared to resist bullying. Officials often fall back on this, especially in the world of education where power structures are tilted against parents and can be abused. Respond calmly. Keep up the letters and be prepared to circulate them more widely: Your local MP and/or councillor. The media. Maybe a lawyer, if you’re a hedge fund manager or a CEO.

Rule Five: Make use of ombudsman services. There’s one for local government, the NHS, banking, energy companies, even parliament. If your complaint isn’t addressed, call them in next. They’re free to the complainant. And write to inform your opponent.

See how this gets fun? Well, almost. If you’re in the position to have to do this – as I have been – it’s maddening and exhausting. But small victories can be sweet.

Bonus Rule Six: Vote to kick them out. This means, whomever is in power at whatever level. Many of the problems that make the kit necessary are clearly down to the Tories at Westminster. But not all of them. Labour councils are capable of behaving disgracefully. Ditto those involving the Lib Dems and Greens. The devolved administrations (Labour in Wales, the SNP in Scotland) have started to look like one party statelets.

So, vote for an opposition party. Dismal public services are ultimately the result of politicians feeling far too comfortable. And yes, I know, it isn’t my kit’s users that are the real irritants at all. It is they, and the providers of services that eschew their responsibilities, who are.