Patients in Kent submitted seven written complaints against doctors every day in the last financial year — but one GP is not surprised.

Scroll down to listen to Faversham GP Dr Gaurav Gupta speak about the figures

One surgery, Canterbury's Northgate Medical Practice, received an average of eight complaints a month — a total of 96 across the year, 27 of which were upheld fully and 20 partially.

While at 20,000-patient West Malling Group Practice 65 of 93 complaints were fully upheld and two partially. The surgery was responsible for 15% of all complaints in West Kent but has not responded to a request for comment.

But Faversham GP Dr Gaurav Gupta says the figure is "not surprising" given the stretched resources surgeries rely on.

The member of the British Medical Association's General Practitioners Committee told KentOnline the county has been "disproportionately" affected by staff shortages, with 250 doctors needed to bring the level up to an acceptable standard.

That's before the lack of support staff is considered — there is a national drive to recruit 20,000 to work alongside GPs which Dr Gupta says should bring the number of complaints down.

He said: "Given the pressure services are under there is always a chance communication is not as good as it can be.

"Of course as humans we can always make mistakes.

"If you look at the pressure the system is under if we had more resources to deal with communication that is probably the only way we can make a long-term improvement."

He added that technology would further reduce issues.

However stressed that in clinical practice human contact is of great comfort to patients.

"If you look at the pressure the system is under if we had more resources to deal with communication that is probably the only way we can make a long-term improvement..." — GP Dr Gaurav Gupta

Across the county there were 2,617 complaints in total, all but 45 of which were resolved.

Of those 58% were upheld either fully or in part.

In West Kent there were 590 complaints, 585 were resolved and 39% of those were fully upheld and 12% partially.

At the other end of the spectrum Ashford Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) resolved 137 complaints across the 12-month period but only 31% were in some way upheld.

Staff attitude and communication were among the most common causes of dissatisfaction.

Stuart Jeffery, deputy managing director at Medway CCG, said: “GP practices in Medway look after almost 300,000 people but unfortunately there are a small number of complaints, all of which are taken seriously."

He added that investment in training and IT infrastructure are helping to improve services and patient satisfaction is very high.

West Kent CCG has not responded to our approaches for comment.

An NHS England spokesperson, said: “More than a million patients use the NHS every 24 hours and, while the vast majority are satisfied with the care they receive, we welcome all forms of feedback from patients and their families so we can continue to improve the services we deliver to them.”

We have approached the other CCGs for comment.

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