Lynn Cawley, Chief Officer, Healthwatch

The Board received the report of the Chief Officer Healthwatch Shropshire – copy attached to the signed Minutes – which set out people’s experiences and views of complaints handling across health and social care services in the last two years.

The Chief Officer gave a presentation which set out what they had done and why and drew attention to the recommendations.  She explained that Healthwatch Shropshire had been providing the Independent Health Complaints Advocacy Service (IHCAS) since 2016 (but interestingly, there was no requirement to provide such a service for those who wished to make a complaint about social care).  She reported that they had given 884 people information about how to make a formal complaint, including social care complaints along with providing 119 people with advocacy support and only a handful of people had reported that they were satisfied with the outcome of their complaint.

The Chief Officer discussed their reflections as providers of IHCAS which included poor communication, psychological distress, meetings to discuss complaints held in inappropriate/triggering areas etc.  Finally, more work was needed to show the public the difference their complaint/feedback had made on the experiences of others. She felt that this piece of work fed into a lot of different workstreams happening across the system including the accessible information standard, advanced care planning, trauma informed workforce and personalisation.

She drew attention to the NHS Complaint Standards which had been published in December 2022 and which set out a single vision for what should happen when a member of the public makes a complaint about NHS services and explained that same areas of the country had now got one complaints procedure across the entire Integrated Care System (ICS).  She explained that the purpose of this work was to highlight how the system was doing against the standards and she implored organisations to embrace the standards.  It was an opportunity to demonstrate to the public all the work that was happening to try and improve people’s experiences of complaining.

A brief discussion ensued.  It was felt that the idea of using a person-centred approach had not previously been considered in relation to complaints but that it may help the public in the way they view, use and consider health services.  It was felt that the complaints process was not always the right thing for the public whereas more investment in bereavement and psychological support would also assist including making TRIM available to the public.

The Chairman confirmed that himself and his chief nurse saw every single complaint and that he signed off all responses before they were sent back, and he also stated that his chief nurse took any  learning through their quality committee, quality conversations and patient experience team to get their views on trends, where the delays were, what the challenges were etc, however, he recognised that this did not always resolve the issue for the person complaining.

CI Tracey Ryan informed the Board of the way in which complaints were dealt with by the Police Service.  She explained that the key was not being defensive but being open and transparent, putting their hands up and admitting that a mistake had been made, there was learning to be had, this was the learning, and this was how it was being shared.  She stated that West Mercia Police did something called 60 second learning whereby an infographic sheet was sent out which says this is what happened, this is what should have happened, and this is what could have made it better.  Feedback was then given to the complainant telling them what had changed because of their complaint.  Seeing that procedural justice was being done provided reassurance and had started to rebuild that confidence and trust and had improved their satisfaction levels in terms of complaints.

The Assistant Director - Integration & Healthy People agreed to take forward the link between bereavement provision and complaints.

RESOLVED:

To note the recommendations contained in the report and discussed in the meeting.