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UK National Audit Office publications

Work in Progress: Complaints handling in Health and Social Care
 

Study Outline

The Department of Health has announced plans in Our Health, Our Care, Our Say to develop a comprehensive single complaints system across health and social care by 2009.

The NAO's examination will examine the arrangements for handling NHS and local authority adult social care complaints, in order to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the complaints handling systems so that conclusions and lessons can be drawn about how the systems have functioned, to inform the new arrangements.

As external auditor of the Healthcare Commission and second tier auditor of NHS trusts, the NAO is uniquely placed to carry out the NHS work, and we are working with other organisations to include social care complaints handling in the examination [Footnote 1].

The study will examine the capacity, capability and effectiveness of the current complaints handling systems in health and social care and what risks will need to be managed if the proposal for a single comprehensive system is to be implemented effectively.

The study will cover all stages of the complaints handling processes, examining the following areas covering both NHS and social care complaints:

• The extent to which there is sufficient capability and capacity for handling health and social care complaints
• Whether complaints are handled in a timely fashion
• The extent to which current handling of complaints meets users' needs
• Whether lessons have been learned and services improved by making use of complaints information and citizens' experience of complaints handling

The methods to carry out the examination will include review and analysis of relevant data and documentation about complaints handling from local resolution to referral to Ombudsmen; a census of all health trusts and local authorities to establish local capability and capacity; case studies of good complaints management in health trusts and local authorities; examination of the performance of the Healthcare Commission independent review function; consultation of service user and carer groups; an omnibus survey of service users, and an international review of complaints handling arrangements.
 

Publication Schedule

We expect to publish our report in Autumn 2008.

Members of the NAO Team

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Media contacts: Donna Watson
Press Office
T: 020 7798 7038
Email Donna Watson through our enquiries desk; please mark your email for her attention

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1. [back] Childrens' social care services would be outside the scope of the study