People who are affected by serious shortcomings in healthcare can report incidents to the Swedish Inspectorate for Health and Social Care, IVO. The supervisory authority examines the complaints and can issue criticisms to healthcare providers.
But investigations take time.
A very long time.
Almost two years
According to a new report from the Swedish National Audit Office, the median time for processing cases in 2024 was just over 19 months. In the first quarter of 2025, the time increased to 23 months. Ivo's own goal is for the processing time to be nine months.
We have looked at the time perspective from 2018 to the present. That is when the current regulations for individual complaints about healthcare came into effect, and that is when Ivo was given a limited duty to investigate. The purpose of this was to streamline the processing time, but we cannot see that it has decreased, says Maria Karlsson, project manager for the review at the National Audit Office.
The long processing times entail risks on several different levels.
"On the one hand, there will be a long wait for the patient who has filed the complaint, but it can also create problems for an individual professional who is under investigation if it turns out that the decision is that no errors have been committed," says Karlsson.
She points out that the long processing times can also make the investigation more difficult, which in the long run can mean that it is not possible to fully clarify what happened because too much time has passed.
This can mean that you cannot give legitimate criticism to healthcare providers and that it will be difficult to return important information to healthcare, which can complicate patient safety work.
Better IT support
Ivo explains the long processing times for the National Audit Office with, among other things, a lack of resources.
Our recommendations are to streamline the processing processes. A fundamental factor is that the IT support available today does not support the processing in an efficient manner.
In March 2024, Ivo reorganized the processing process and now the authority works in a national structure, instead of regionally.
We believe that in the long term it can help increase speed, says Maria Karlsson.
