Complaints
COMPLAINTS POLICY AND PROCEDURE
Purpose: To outline the information and guidance for staff to follow on managing comments and complaints to the service.
Policy: <Name of organisation> is committed to provide a high-quality service. When something goes wrong with our care, treatment or service provision, you need to know about this so that you can improve the care you provide. To achieve this <Name of organisation> will:
Encourage comments, suggestions, observations and complaints and act upon these as a means of continual improvement.
Make sure staff accept comments or complaints in a professional manner and without recrimination.
Make the system easy to use.
Thank people formally for any compliments, comments, suggestions and observations.
Make sure you respond to and investigate complaints fairly and within the time frame.
Put right anything that has gone wrong and repair any damaged relationships.
Scope: The legislation and guidance staff must adhere to includes:
Care Quality Commission – Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.
Guidance for providers on meeting the regulations: Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 (Part 3) (as amended): Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009 (Part 4) (as amended).
<Add in others relevant to the organisation>.
Definitions
Comment or observation – a verbal or written remark expressing an opinion about an aspect of the care or treatment your staff provide, or about your service. An example of this might be, ‘Your staff looked rushed off their feet today.’
Suggestion – a verbal or written idea about how you can change, improve or update the care or treatment your staff provide, or about your service. An example might be, ‘Can you send your newsletter round more regularly?’
Compliment – part of your complaints procedure is to look at what you are doing well. Letters, cards, or verbal expressions of appreciation you receive are evidence that you are doing a good job, so you should continue to do what you are already doing well. An example might be, ‘Your staff are really helpful.’
Complaint – any expression of dissatisfaction with the care or treatment your staff provide, or a failure of your organisation to provide a service to a service user. This can be either written or verbal. It doesn’t matter whether your staff feel this is justified or not. An example might be, ‘My father has fallen every day this week.’
<Add in a time limit if you want to limit the time for when complaints should be received e.g. within 12 months of the event occurring>
<Add in how you will investigate and respond to anonymous comments or complaints e.g., this could be to place these onto your website via a ‘service improvement’ page>
Procedures
Receiving Comments, Observations, Suggestions and Complaints
All staff should be aware of the definitions of a comment, observation, suggestion and complaint.
All staff should be able to take details of comments, observations and suggestions in person and to thank the person for taking the time to give these. They should pass these on to the complaints coordinator who will give a formal response thanking the person for these.
All staff should be able to take details of a complaint in person or be able to give the complainant details of the complaints coordinator or an independent advocate who can take the complaint on the complainant’s behalf. <Add in who you will /will not accept complaints from if applicable>.
Staff should be able to explain that the complaint can be made verbally or in writing and that this can be done by letter to <insert address>, e-mail to < insert email address>, telephone to <insert telephone number> or face to face <insert the name and contact details of who will do this>.
Staff should give details of the time frames for acknowledgement <insert time frame i.e. 48 hours>. You will send a formal letter of acknowledgement to the person giving details of the next steps.
Start a complaints report, containing dates of responses, details of any investigations, the outcomes, dates of final letters and responses.
Investigating the Complaint
An investigation of the complaint will take place in the first instance by the <complaints coordinator or other person> unless the complaint is about them in particular and then you will ask <insert the name of person who will carry out the investigation on your behalf in this instance>.
An investigation may involve:
Carrying out a record review, reviewing accident books, incident reports etc.
Reviewing any correspondence about the matter.
Interviewing the staff member involved or other staff (or the complainant if further information is required).
Observing practice.
Reviewing policies and procedures to find discrepancies between policy and practice.
Looking for other evidence e.g. CCTV footage.
Responses
The complaints coordinator will write to the complainant with the outcome of the complaint on behalf of <insert Name of organisation>.
Investigation, resolution and the final response will take place within <insert time frame i.e. 4 weeks> as far as possible. If this is to take longer, you will inform the complainant about this as soon as possible.
The final response will include details of the investigation, the outcome and what you will do to change practice accordingly (if appropriate).
The final response will give details of how the person can escalate their complaint if they are not satisfied with the outcome.
Improvements
The complaints coordinator will inform the registered manager of the need for any improvements identified as a result of the complaint so that you can develop an action plan to improve practice accordingly.
<insert Name of organisation> will implement any changes to practice within <insert time-frame, e.g. 4 weeks> of the action being identified.
Recording
Once <insert Name of organisation> has received a complaint, recording of the complaint will start. This is to include:
The date of receipt of the complaint.
The date of the acknowledgment of its receipt.
You keep a copy of the acknowledgement on file.
The date by which you will complete the investigation.
Details of the investigation.
Details of the outcome of the investigation.
The date by which you will send the final letter of response.
You will keep a copy of the final response letter on file.
Action plans to improve practice.
Review
Review of the comment and complaints policy and system takes place each year or when the following occurs:
A comment or complaint suggests the system is not working as it should.
