Complaints
Recommendations related to complaints
Tag overview
recommendation across 10 inquiries
Across 10 inquiries
Tagged Recommendations
Independent advocacy for service users and families
Properly trained independent advocates should be made available to service users and families to support effective communication with staff and for raising concerns and complaints. DoH/SPPG should specify the level …
Clear pathways for raising concerns
People with learning disabilities and autistic people and their families should be provided with clear, written information outlining the available pathways for raising concerns. This information should clearly distinguish between …
Guidance on recording and presenting concerns
People with learning disabilities and autistic people and their families should be provided with a short description of how best to record and present concerns so as to be effective.
Record all complaints in electronic system
In HSCTs all complaints, regardless of whether they are resolved immediately at ward level, should be recorded in the Trust’s electronic complaints management system. In private and third sector facilities …
Inform complainants of complaint management process
Complainants should immediately be informed of how their complaint will be managed (locally or through the corporate complaints process) along with a clear explanation of the corresponding level of investigation …
Regular updates on complaint progress
Complainants must be regularly updated and informed of the progress of any investigation, including when the process concludes without a specific finding.
Red-rated complaints shared with all NEDs
All complaints managed at corporate level and rated as red (using the red, amber and green (RAG) rating matrix) should be shared with all non-executive directors (NEDs) on the Board.
Proactive quality assurance beyond complaints
Complaints alone are a poor indicator of quality of care, particularly in a vulnerable population such as those admitted to MAH. A low volume or absence of complaints does not …
PCC awareness of statutory functions
The PCC should take further steps to ensure that health service users, including carers and families of people with learning disabilities and autistic people, are aware of its statutory functions …
Update healthcare complaints handling guidance
The Home Office must review and update Detention Services Order 03/2015: Handling of Complaints to ensure that appropriate guidance is given to healthcare providers on the investigation and handling of …
Address barriers to detainee complaints including fear of repercussions
The Home Office and its contractors operating immigration removal centres must take steps to identify and address the barriers to making complaints that are faced by detained people, including a …
Improve Professional Standards Unit investigation procedures and training
The Home Office must update Detention Services Order 03/2015: Handling of Complaints to clarify that, in investigations carried out by the Professional Standards Unit into allegations of serious misconduct against …
Reform Church of England clergy discipline for safeguarding
The Church of England should make changes and improvements to the way in which it responds to safeguarding complaints (whether related to allegations of abuse, or a failure to comply …
Disapply 12-month limit for CSA police complaints
The Chair and Panel recommend that the National Police Chiefs' Council ensures that complaints relating to child sexual abuse are no longer 'disapplied' by police forces on the grounds that …
Catholic complaints policy with escalation process
The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales and the Conference of Religious should publish a national policy for complaints about the way in which a safeguarding case is handled. …
Communicating complaint escalation
We recommend that information about the means to escalate a complaint to an independent body is communicated more effectively in both the NHS and the independent sector.
Mandatory independent complaint resolution
We recommend that all private patients should have the right to mandatory independent resolution of their complaint.
Using Investigations for Training
Information from clinical incident investigations, complaints, performance appraisal, inquests and litigation should be specifically assessed for potential use in training and retraining.
Improve complaints handling
The University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust should review the structures, processes and staff involved in responding to complaints, and introduce measures to promote the use of complaints …
Fundamental review of NHS complaints system
The NHS complaints system in the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust failed relatives at almost every turn. Although it was not within our remit to examine the …
CQC and PHSO memorandum of understanding
The relationship between the investigation of individual complaints and the investigation of the systemic problems that they exemplify gave us cause for concern, in particular the breakdown in communication between …
Nursing complaint investigation
Health Boards should ensure that where a complaint is made about nursing practice on a ward this complaint is investigated by an independent senior member of Nursing Management.
Effective complaints handling
Methods of registering a comment or complaint must be readily accessible and easily understood. Multiple gateways need to be provided to patients, both during their treatment and after its conclusion, …
Lowering barriers
Actual or intended litigation should not be a barrier to the processing or investigation of a complaint at any level. It may be prudent for parties in actual or potential …
Lowering barriers
Provider organisations must constantly promote to the public their desire to receive and learn from comments and complaints; constant encouragement should be given to patients and other service users, individually …
Lowering barriers
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 …
Complaints handling
The recommendations and standards suggested in the Patients Association's peer review into complaints at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust should be reviewed and implemented in the NHS.
Complaints handling
Comments or complaints which describe events amounting to an adverse or serious untoward incident should trigger an investigation.
Investigations
Arms-length independent investigation of a complaint should be initiated by the provider trust where any one of the following apply: A complaint amounts to an allegation of a serious untoward …
Support for complainants
Where meetings are held between complainants and trust representatives or investigators as part of the complaints process, advocates and advice should be readily available to all complainants who want those …
Support for complainants
A facility should be available to Independent Complaints Advocacy Services advocates and their clients for access to expert advice in complicated cases.
Learning and information from complaints
Subject to anonymisation, a summary of each upheld complaint relating to patient care, in terms agreed with the complainant, and the trust's response should be published on its website. In …
Learning and information from complaints
Overview and scrutiny committees and Local Healthwatch should have access to detailed information about complaints, although respect needs to be paid in this instance to the requirement of patient confidentiality.
Learning and information from complaints
Commissioners should require access to all complaints information as and when complaints are made, and should receive complaints and their outcomes on as near a real-time basis as possible. This …
Learning and information from complaints
The Care Quality Commission should have a means of ready access to information about the most serious complaints. Their local inspectors should be charged with informing themselves of such complaints …
Handling large-scale complaints
Large-scale failures of clinical service are likely to have in common a need for: Provision of prompt advice, counselling and support to very distressed and anxious members of the public; …
Role of commissioners in complaints
Commissioners should be entitled to intervene in the management of an individual complaint on behalf of the patient where it appears to them it is not being dealt with satisfactorily, …
Role of commissioners in provision of support for complainants
Consideration should be given to whether commissioners should be given responsibility for commissioning patients' advocates and support services for complaints against providers.
Complaints to MPs
MPs are advised to consider adopting some simple system for identifying trends in the complaints and information they received from constituents. They should also consider whether individual complaints imply concerns …
General Medical Council Systemic investigation where needed
The General Medical Council should have a clear policy about the circumstances in which a generic complaint or report ought to be made to it, enabling a more proactive approach …
Role of the Health and Social Care Information Centre
The Information Centre, in consultation with the Department of Health, the NHS Commissioning Board and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, should develop a means of publishing more detailed breakdowns …
Use of information about compliance by regulator from: Complaints
The Care Quality Commission should ensure as a matter of urgency that it has reliable access to all useful complaints information relevant to assessment of compliance with fundamental standards, and …
Use of information about compliance by regulator from: Complaints
The Care Quality Commission should introduce a mandated return from providers about patterns of complaints, how they were dealt with and outcomes.
Use of information about compliance by regulator from: Complaints
It is important that greater attention is paid to the narrative contained in, for instance, complaints data, as well as to the numbers.
Complaint Handling Mechanism
The Board should require all those who subscribe to have an adequate and speedy complaint handling mechanism; it should encourage those who wish to complain to do so through that …
Power to Hear Complaints
The Board should have the power to hear and decide on complaints about breach of the standards code by those who subscribe. The Board should have the power (but not …
Complaint Decision Responsibility
Decisions on complaints should be the ultimate responsibility of the Board, advised by complaints handling officials to whom appropriate delegations may be made.
Complaints Committee Composition
Serving editors should not be members of any Committee advising the Board on complaints and any such Committee should have a composition broadly reflecting that of the main Board, with …
Free Complaints Process
It should continue to be the case that complainants are able to bring complaints free of charge.
Pre-litigation Complaints
A regulatory body should be prepared to allow a complaint to be brought prior to commencing legal proceedings if so advised. Challenges to that approach (and applications to stay) can …
CPErS Complaints Procedure
JDP 1-10 should incorporate the requirement that on entry to and exit from a theatre level detention facility, CPErS are proactively asked whether or not they have any complaints concerning …