Managing patients’ expectations in telephone complaints

Abstract

In this Conversation Analytical study we examine telephone complaints to the NHS which address a variety of issues raised by patients or their families. One area of ‘identity struggle’ for the patient caller is located in the difficult moral work that often needs to accompany the act of complaining. Complaints are an accountable activity, and legitimacy is ‘built into’ the complaint through a variety of means including invocations of the ‘right’ to complain, emotion discourse and constructions of the self as a ‘good’ or ‘reasonable’ patient. Similarly, identity conflicts arise for complaints handlers when the ideal forms of rapport involved in complaining sequences sometimes come into conflict with the institutionality of the event. It is hoped that a detailed and discursive exploration of this key stage of the patient experience will lead to productive observations about effective communicative strategies for addressing complaints in ways that successfully manage the patient’s expectations.