Complaints

The Inquiry recommends that the Trust and Department work together to ensure there is: • A specific programme of work to strengthen patient involvement, improve communication, and ensure patients and …

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 …

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

Complainants must be regularly updated and informed of the progress of any investigation, including when the process concludes without a specific finding.

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.

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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. …

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.

We recommend that all private patients should have the right to mandatory independent resolution of their complaint.

Information from clinical incident investigations, complaints, performance appraisal, inquests and litigation should be specifically assessed for potential use in training and retraining.

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 …

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 …

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 …

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.

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, …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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.

Comments or complaints which describe events amounting to an adverse or serious untoward incident should trigger an investigation.

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 …

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 …

A facility should be available to Independent Complaints Advocacy Services advocates and their clients for access to expert advice in complicated cases.

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

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; …

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, …

Consideration should be given to whether commissioners should be given responsibility for commissioning patients' advocates and support services for complaints against providers.

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

The Care Quality Commission should introduce a mandated return from providers about patterns of complaints, how they were dealt with and outcomes.

It is important that greater attention is paid to the narrative contained in, for instance, complaints data, as well as to the numbers.

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 …

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 …

Decisions on complaints should be the ultimate responsibility of the Board, advised by complaints handling officials to whom appropriate delegations may be made.

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 …

It should continue to be the case that complainants are able to bring complaints free of charge.

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 …

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 …