Learning and information from complaints

Accepted in part.
We accept that commissioning bodies play an important role in ensuring that the organisations from which it commissions services are delivering effective and open complaints arrangements, and delivering their statutory responsibilities. Complaints contain valuable information that commissioners should be aware of. However, we consider requiring Trusts to provide all complaints information will place a significant bureaucratic burden on both the service provider and the commissioning body. To be meaningful, commissioners would need to be aware of, and understand each complaint, which would also be an unjustifiable duplication of resources.
The Review of the Handling of Complaints in NHS Hospitals recommends that:
• There should be Board-led scrutiny of complaints. All Boards and Chief Executives should receive monthly reports on complaints and the action taken, including an evaluation of the effectiveness of the action. These reports should be available to the Chief Inspector of Hospitals.
The Department of Health will ensure that each quarter every hospital publishes information on the complaints it has received. This will include:
• the number of complaints received, as a percentage of patient interventions in that period;
• the number of complaints the hospital has been informed have subsequently been referred to the Ombudsman; and
• lessons learned and improvements made as a result of complaints.
The Department of Health will work with NHS England and other key partners to determine the most effective mechanism through which to achieve these outcomes.

This recommendation was accepted in part by the Government.

GP practices produce an annual report on complaints, which they must provide to their commissioning body on request. They must also provide a summary of complaints to NHS England local teams.

NHS England expects practices to complete a KO41b data return on complaints. This is published via data collection referenced in response to recommendation 119.

ICBs do not have a specific oversight role with GP complaint handling. However, NHS England is currently finalising an oversight and assurance process of ICB complaints handling (delegated from July 2023).

In addition, the LFPSE service is a national NHS system for the recording and analysis of patient safety events that occur in healthcare. All healthcare staff in England , including those working in primary care, are encouraged to use the system to record any events where:
• a patient was harmed, or could have been harmed
• there has been a poor outcome but it is not yet clear whether an incident contributed or not
• risks to patient safety in the future have been identified
• good care has been delivered that could be learned from to improve patient safety

It is important for organisations to be accountable to the public for the way they handle complaints. The Department of Health, working with the Health and Social Care Information Centre, committed to developing a system that enabled Trusts to publish accurate, detailed quarterly data on the number of complaints received, and to enable comparison across hospitals. The overall aim of the revisions is to provide members of the public and regulatory bodies with frequent, more meaningful data which will identify organisations whose level of complaints, whether high or low, suggests there may be cause for concern. Hospitals will begin revised collections from April 2015, with the first quarterly report envisaged by late summer 2015. It is expected the public can begin to compare Trusts’ complaints data by late Autumn 2015.

The Department of Health is working with NHS England to strengthen the 15/16 NHS Standard contract so it includes the need to prominently display complaints information.

Sir Mike Richard’s thematic complaints report was published in December 2014. It cover 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.

This recommendation was accepted in part by the Government.

In the January 2014 Hard Truths report, the Government said that requiring trusts to provide all complaints information would place significant bureaucratic burden on both the provider and the commissioning body. The Department of Health would instead ensure that each quarter every hospital published information on the complaints it received.

In the February 2015 Culture Change report, the Government said that the Department of Health was working with the Health and Social Care Information Centre to develop a system that enabled trusts to published detailed quarterly data on the number of complaints received, with revised reports expected by late summer 2015.