Complaint Standards at a glance
An effective complaint handling system...
Promotes a learning culture by supporting the whole organisation to:
- see complaints as an opportunity to develop and improve its services and people
- set clear expectations to embed an open, non-defensive approach to learning from
complaints - regularly talk to its managers, leaders and service users about what it has learnt from
complaints and how it has used learning to improve services for everyone - give colleagues the support and training they need to deliver best practice in handling
complaints.
Welcomes complaints in a positive way and:
- recognises them as important insight into how to improve services
- creates a positive experience by making it easy for service users to make a complaint
- gives colleagues the freedom to resolve issues quickly and to everyone’s satisfaction.
Is thorough and fair when looking into complaints and:
- gives an open and honest answer as quickly as possible, considering the complexity of the issues
- makes sure service users who make complaints, and colleagues directly involved in the issues, have their say and are kept updated when they carry out this work
- makes sure service users can see what colleagues are doing to look into the issues in a fair and objective way, based on the facts.
Gives fair and accountable responses that:
- set out what happened and whether mistakes were made
- fairly reflect the experiences of everyone involved
- clearly set out how the organisation is accountable
- give colleagues the confidence and freedom to offer fair remedies to put things right
- take action to make sure any learning is identified and used to improve services.
