Making Complaints Count

Making Complaints Count: Supporting complaints handling in the NHS and UK Government Departments
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman  15 July 2020

• This report follows an invitation from the House of Commons Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs to explore the ‘state of local complaints handling’ across the NHS and UK Government departments. It draws upon interviews, a review of research reports including PHSO investigation reports.
• The research highlights three core weaknesses. 
• There is no single vision for how staff are expected to handle and resolve complaints.
• Staff do not get consistent access to high quality complaints handling training
• Public bodies too often see complaints negatively, not as a learning tool that can be used to improve their service. 
• The PHSO proposal is to create a Complaint Standards Framework which will provide a consistency and support to frontline staff, as well as assisting senior leaders to promote a positive culture of learning from complaints. It provides the basis for a central training platform for staff to give them the support and development they need, and to recognise that handling and resolving complaints is a professional skill. 

NHS Choice Framework

NHS Choice Framework
DHSC updated 14 January 2020

• Sets out patients’ rights to choice in healthcare, where to find information to help choose, and how to complain if choice isn’t offered. Includes Easyread leaflets.

NHS Staff and Learners' Mental Wellbeing Report

NHS Staff and Learners' Mental Wellbeing Report
Health Education England February 2019

• As part of Health Education England’s health and care workforce strategy, the NHS Staff and Learners’ Mental Wellbeing Commission set out to discover and review evidence of good practices for the mental health and wellbeing of staff and learners in NHS organisations. The Commission has examined successful interventions from around the country, to identify what has worked well and what could be adopted widely. The final report makes a number of recommendations which will be considered as part of the Workforce Development Plan outlined in the Long Term Plan.
• The report makes 33 recommendations including:
• 1. Establish a board level NHS Workforce Wellbeing Guardian in every NHS organisation 
• 2. All NHS organisations appoint a Workplace Wellbeing Leader to work with and report to the Workforce Wellbeing Guardian.
• 5. Healthcare providers (such as GP practices, hospitals, and care home operators) on a local (STP or ICS) footprint should create a schools’ work experience bureau service.
• 23. A national charter should be developed, working with patient groups, clinical professionals and their representative bodies, and regulators of the professions that seeks to examine the way that reflections, complaints and comments from patients and the public are handled in the NHS.