Services delivering regulated activities must offer an “effective and accessible system for identifying, receiving, handling and responding to complaints from people using the service or those acting on their behalf”.
It is against the law not to do so and CQC can request evidence of this being in place at any time.
Under the Health and Social Care Act 2008, it is stated that all complaints must be investigated thoroughly, and action taken where failings are identified.
Why take complaints seriously?
Complaints are an opportunity for learning. Things go wrong, and a service user might be affected in some way by a mistake or a failing of your service. What is important is that complaints that are made in your service are;
a) recorded and acknowledged
b) acted upon
c) learned from
Book a complaints audit today
Get a second pair of eyes on your complaints
When you’re in the thick of it, it can be difficult to ensure all complaints are followed up and any patterns are recognised.
That’s why we run a complaints audit service where we can review all complaints you have received, and take a data driven approach to identify:
We’ll issue you with actionable data and insights that you can use to ensure complaints are being followed up on and patterns are being recognised.
This information can also be demonstrated as evidence at your next CQC inspection that you are taking a continuous improvement approach to your complaints management process.
Be more user-led
Listening to and involving people is one of CQC’s “We Statements” – they want to ensure services make it easy for people to share feedback and ideas or raise complaints about their care, treatment and support.
An effective way to do this outside of your complaints process is through regular feedback surveys sent out to service users and their families.
This can help you gain insights into what’s going well, and what’s not going well before it becomes an issue. Early intervention is key when it comes to managing your risks before they become an issue.
Implementing these surveys and getting the most out of the data you receive from them can be time consuming when you’re juggling lots of priorities.
We can manage the entire feedback process for you, from survey design and delivery to response management and reporting outcomes to you in an easily digestible and actionable format.
Get actionable insights
We’ll identify trends, highlight areas of concern, and give you a list of suggested actions.
Whether this is a standalone project, or you’d like us to perform these checks on a more regular basis, you’ll be evidencing your commitment to involving your service users in the design and delivery of your service.
