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F112

Lowering barriers

Mid Staffs Inquiry · Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry · Issued 6 February 2013 · Addressed to: Healthcare providers

Government responseDepartment of Health and Social Care: Accepted (Nov 2013)

DeliveryDHSC and NHS England say in progress (Feb 2026)Department of Health and Social Care says in progress (Feb 2015)

Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry

●Inquiry recommendation

Patient feedback which is not in the form of a complaint but which suggests cause for concern should be the subject of investigation and response of the same quality as a formal complaint, whether or not the informant has indicated a desire to have the matter dealt with as such.

Mid Staffs Inquiry, Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry · 6 Feb 2013 Source PDF →

Published evidence summary

AI-generated evidence summary

The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England reported in February 2026 that collaborative complaint standards define a complaint as an expression of dissatisfaction requiring a response, and that clinical concerns link to patient safety incident frameworks (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). They added that patients and families can share concerns about unsafe care using an online form following an autumn 2023 discovery phase (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). Earlier, in May 2024, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team noted that the government had accepted the recommendation and committed to handling concerns and complaints in accordance with individual needs (The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team, May 2024).

AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026.

About this summary
This recommendation applies across many organisations. The record above reflects central policy activity; adoption in individual organisations may vary.

Report-level response context

Government responded via "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (2014), a single document covering all 290 recommendations with a blanket acceptance. Individual recommendation responses were not broken out.

Government response

●Department of Health and Social Care · Accepted · 19 Nov 2013

Speaker not recorded. Source: Department of Health, Hard Truths: the Journey to Putting Patients First, volume 2 (Cm 8777-II), November 2013

Accepted.
In many respects, the distinction between a ‘concern’ and a ‘complaint’ is artificial. Both indicate some level of dissatisfaction and require a response. Patients or their relatives will often feel more comfortable in raising a concern than in making a complaint, but a concern may be just as likely to indicate a potential patient safety issue. It is important that concerns and complaints are handled in accordance with the needs of the individual case, and investigated.

Extract from: Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First. Volume Two of the Government Response to the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry: Response to the Inquiry's Recommendations

Site note: This is volume two of "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (Cm 8777-II), the government's response to the Inquiry's 290 recommendations, published by the Department of Health on GOV.UK on 19 November 2013 and dated to that day here. The PDF the row links to is the accessible edition, whose title page reads "January 2014". The Department of Health has been the Department of Health and Social Care since January 2018. The volume says it includes accounts from each of the national organisations the recommendations name, but it does not mark which passage each organisation wrote, so every row is filed under the Department that published it.

Delivery

●DHSC and NHS England say in progress · 27 Feb 2026

The PHSO NHS Complaint Standards provides a wide definition of “complaint” as an expression of dissatisfaction – either spoken or written – that requires a response. NHS England worked together with the PHSO and other stakeholders to create the standards.

Clinical concerns included in complaints are followed up and can link with Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) and Learn from Patient Safety Events (LFPSE)NHS England recognises how important it is for patients and families to be able to share their concerns about unsafe care. To support this we undertook a Discovery Phase in Autumn 2023, and published a report with proposed next steps.

Patients and families can share concerns about unsafe care using an eForm.

From: The Thirlwall Inquiry: Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025)

Site note: DHSC and NHS England's own account of progress, supplied to the Thirlwall Inquiry in September 2024 and printed in the Inquiry legal team's Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025, published 27 February 2026). It is not a finding of the Inquiry. Their reviewed extent of implementation reads “Implemented - Ongoing”. Table row: section 18.2 No. 112, PDF page 478.

●Department of Health and Social Care says in progress · 11 Feb 2015

Sir Mike Richard’s thematic complaints report Complaints Matter was published in December 2014. It covers acute inspections, primary care, and social care and identifies trends and themes in complaints handling drawn from the inspections done by the Care Quality Commission. Monitor is in the process of working to further align the well-led framework with the Care Quality Commission’s new inspection regime. The current well-led framework was published in May 2014 and includes a number of references to how boards should use complaints in reviewing their governance arrangements. The framework will be used by NHS trusts, Foundation trusts, Monitor, NHS Trust Development Authority and the Care Quality Commission to ensure consistent standards across the system of how well-led NHS organisations are.

At their 2014 Annual Conference, the NHS Confederation dedicated a session on capturing the patient perspective to improve care. The session looked at good practice examples of organisations effectively gathering and using feedback to improve services and how the NHS can make the most of this invaluable information to deliver patient-centred healthcare. At their 2015 Annual Conference, the NHS Confederation will have the patient voice and experience as a central theme.

From: Culture Change in the NHS supporting Annex (annex to Culture change in the NHS: applying the lessons of the Francis Inquiries)

Site note: This is the supporting annex published on 11 February 2015 with "Culture change in the NHS: applying the lessons of the Francis Inquiries" (Cm 9009), attached to the GOV.UK page as "Culture change in the NHS supporting annex". The annex has no title page; that title is GOV.UK's and the PDF's own. Its table has four columns (No., Recommendation, Hard Truths Government response, Progress update), and the row carries the Progress update cell. No column says which organisation wrote an update, so the row is filed under the Department of Health (now the Department of Health and Social Care), which published it.

Site note: The Inquiry addressed this recommendation to healthcare providers, not to the Department of Health. The annex gives this update in the Department's publication and does not say who wrote it, so the row is the Department's report of the progress made on it.

What other bodies have found

In their own words. These do not change the delivery statement above.

●Thirlwall Inquiry legal team · 15 May 2024

This recommendation was accepted by the Government.

In the January 2014 Hard Truths report, the Government said it was important that concerns and complaints are handled in accordance with the needs of the individual case.

From: The Thirlwall Inquiry: Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version of 15 May 2024)

Site note: The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team's own notes on implementation, from its Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version of 15 May 2024). The review does not colour its Extent of Implementation cell for this recommendation green; it leaves the cell uncoloured where a recommendation was rejected, where evidence of implementation was insufficient, or where steps had been taken but implementation was not yet complete. Table row: section 16.2 No. 112, PDF page 444.

How this page is built

The recommendation and the government responses are verbatim from primary documents. Delivery statements and other bodies' findings are shown in their own words, each with its source. The summary is written by this site and labelled as such. The Index does not paraphrase sources or characterise intent; it records what has been published.