Press Release - Feeding Back? Learning from complaints
handling in Health and Social Care
10 October 2008
A report out today by the National Audit
Office found that navigating complaints systems is not
straightforward, particularly for health service users, and
handling some complaints takes too long. There is little sharing of
lessons from complaints or evidence that services are improving as
a result.
Some 133,600 NHS and 17,100 social care
complaints were received in 2006–07. In a representative survey of
adults in England, around one in seven people using NHS and social
care services in the past three years have in some way been
dissatisfied with their experience. But only five per cent of
those who were dissatisfied with the NHS and 32 per cent who were
dissatisfied with social care went on to make a formal
complaint.
Two thirds of complainants were not offered
help navigating the system. A national advocacy service is
available to help NHS complainants, but awareness of it is low. For
adult social care, complainants do not have an entitlement to
advocacy support, and local authorities make their own advocacy
arrangements.
There is a lack of systematic learning from
complaints to improve services. Neither the NHS nor social
care have any formal means of capturing learning from
complaints. Monitoring and implementation of recommendations
arising from complaints need to be improved.
Handling some complaints takes too long.
Around 95 per cent of complaints are concluded locally and three
quarters of these are concluded within 20-25 working days.
NHS complaints that progress to the second, independent review
stage by the Healthcare Commission took an average of 171 working
days and social care took an average of 63 working days.
Recognising the failings in the existing
complaints systems, in 2006 the Department of Health announced it
would introduce a single complaints system across health and social
care in England by 2009. Until now, there has, however, been no
detailed evaluation of the effectiveness of the existing systems.
The NAO report identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the
current arrangements and the issues that need to be addressed if
the Department’s ambition for a single comprehensive NHS and social
care complaints system is to be realized.
Tim Burr, head of the National Audit
Office, said:
“The complaints systems for health
and social care are not yet as accessible and responsive as they
could be. There is a lack of learning from complaints, and
providers are not making clear to users that services are being
improved as result. Adequate staff training; proper tackling
of complaints; and evidence of improvements in response to
complaints are key pointers for the planned introduction of a new
comprehensive complaints system across health and social care next
year.”
Notes for Editors
- Today’s report examines the performance,
capability and capacity of current systems for complaints handling
in health and adult social care, and identifies the issues that
need to be addressed in the introduction of the single
comprehensive NHS and social care complaints system.
- There are currently two separate statutory
processes for handling complaints about health and social
care. For both services, there is a first, local resolution
stage. For complaints that progress to a second stage, the
Healthcare Commission is responsible for NHS independent review and
for social care, local authorities carry out a Stage 2
investigation. The ultimate reviewers of complaints, for
those complainants who continue to be unhappy, are the Health
Service Ombudsman and the Local Government Ombudsmen. The new
arrangements to be introduced in April 2009 were described in
Making Experiences Count published by the Department in
2007.
- Press notices and reports are available from
the date of publication on the NAO website, which is at
www.nao.org.uk. Hard copies can be obtained from The
Stationery Office on 0845 702 3474.
- The Comptroller and Auditor General, Tim
Burr, is the head of the National Audit Office which employs some
850 staff. He and the NAO are totally independent of
Government. He certifies the accounts of all Government
departments and a wide range of other public sector bodies; and he
has statutory authority to report to Parliament on the economy,
efficiency and effectiveness with which departments and other
bodies have used their resources.
Press Notice 40/08
All enquiries to Barry
Lester,
NAO Press Office: Tel: 020 7798
7038
Mobile: 07748 181 692