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Part of
Identity Struggles: Evidence from workplaces around the world
Edited by Dorien Van De Mieroop and Stephanie Schnurr
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 69] 2017
► pp. 243–262

Chapter 13
Managing patients’ expectations in telephone complaints in Scotland

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.

Keywords: complaints, affiliation, CA, telephone conversations, NHS
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Complaints, consumers and the UK National Health Service (NHS)
  • The NHS complaints process
  • Methods and data
  • Data analysis
    • The moral work required to complain
    • Conflicting agendas for complaint recipients
    • Conversational affiliation
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 April 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.69.13ben
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Benwell, Bethan & Catrin Rhys
2023. Phase Structure and Resistance to Progressivity in Complaints Calls to the NHS. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 42:5-6 ► pp. 523 ff. DOI logo
McCreaddie, May, Bethan Benwell & Alice Gritti
2018. Traumatic journeys; understanding the rhetoric of patients’ complaints. BMC Health Services Research 18:1 DOI logo
McCreaddie, May, Bethan Benwell & Alice Gritti
2021. A qualitative study of National Health Service (NHS) complaint-responses. BMC Health Services Research 21:1 DOI logo

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