News and presentations from today's NHS Complaints Summit.
A lived experience of the complaints process from a patient perspective
Carolyn Cleveland
Director, C&C Empathy Training Ltd
• understanding the complexity of the emotional impact within complaints
• recognising fairness, justice and learning from a lived experience
• being familiar with the power of listening with empathy for compassion and learning
Carolyn shared learning from her experience following the loss of her daughter Sophie and the unaswered questions she was left with. She explained the harm caused by a lack of empathy, compassion and understanding. She ended her presentation by saying; "Within our challenging work days, listening with empathy and compassionately engaging and involving people really is empowering....remember 'people may hear your words, but they feel your attitude'."
EXTENDED SESSION: The NHS Wide Complaints Standard
Jo Power
Liaison Officer
Cameron Kennedy
Liaison Manager
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
• PHSO update
• supporting and improving front line complaint handling
• the new NHS Complaint Standards, model procedure and guidance
• what the Standards mean for your organisation
• implementing the standards in your service
- Jo Power's Biography 0.01 MBDOCXfile
- Cameron Kennedy's Biography 0.06 MBDOCXfile
- Abstract 0.01 MBDOCXfile
- Presentation slides 1.62 MBPDFfile
Jo explained the work of the PHSO in dealing with NHS complaints that are escalated to them, they look at whether there is a case to answer and whether it can be resolved, if not it goes to investigation where evidence is gathered from everyone concerned. They make recommendations, the latest figures are due out but in 2021/22 there were 361 recommendations to offer an apology and 294 service improvement recommendations. Only 29 cases were resolved through mediation. This is something they want to address and promote more, where the PHSO acts as a mutual third party to help reach a resolution.
Cameron went on to explain the new NHS Complaints Standard, first published in 2021 with the final version just published last month following a pilot. The Standard brings together best practice recommendations for managing complaints and guidance on learning from complaints. The core principles include; ensuring organisations and senior leaders truly promote a just and learning culture, and recognising that patient feedback is one of the best ways to learn and improve, complaints should be welcomed in a positive way. A model complaints policy is provided for Trusts to adopt with guidance on how to fairly investigate and early resolution, and how to put things right.
Cameron said the PHSO is using the Standard in their own case work and once fully rolled out they will share their approach so that organisations will know how they are applying the standards to the complaints they receive. They are looking at how to gather the data to highlight best practice they are seeing for learning and improvement.