Handling complaints in social care services
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•444 views
The Care Inspectorate is changing how it investigates complaints about care services in Scotland. This presentation describes these changes and reinforces why an apology is so important when things go wrong.
Recommended
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Similar to Handling complaints in social care services
Similar to Handling complaints in social care services (20)
More from Rami Okasha
More from Rami Okasha (7)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Handling complaints in social care services
- 1. HANDLING COMPLAINTS IN REGISTERED CARE SERVICES Rami Okasha, Executive Director of Strategy and Improvement @ramiokasha
- 2. The Care Inspectorate is the official body responsible for inspecting and supporting improvement social care and social work in Scotland Everyone is entitled to safe, high quality, compassionate care that meets their needs.
- 3. We also carry out strategic scrutiny • joint inspections of strategic planning in partnerships • lead joint inspections of services for children • thematic review of adult support and protection • thematic review of self directed support • scrutiny of community justice • review of adverse events in social work
- 4. Investigating complaints about the care quality The Care Inspectorate must establish a procedure by which a person, or someone acting on a person’s behalf, may make complaints about a registered care service. • the procedure must be available to people whether or not the registered service has a complaints procedure. • the Care Inspectorate must keep the procedure under review and must vary it whenever, after consultation, it considers it appropriate to do so. The Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, Section 79
- 5. Number of complaints In 2016/17, we received 4,277 complaints about care services. Over the last three years, we received an average of 356 complaints per month.
- 6. Complaints by service type 6.1 9.2 15.3 19.7 47.9 Housing support Childminding Support service Day care of children Care homes
- 7. Who makes complaints? 0.1 0.3 1.2 1.2 1.6 6.9 9 20.9 45.4 Politician Advocacy service Health professional Another provider Professional visitor Public Person experiencing care (Ex) Employee Friend or relative
- 8. What do people complain about? Summary area of complaint number upheld % General health and welfare 432 23.2% Specific healthcare concerns 313 16.8% Concerns about staff or staffing 298 16.0% Communication 252 13.5% Policies and procedures 112 6.0% Choice 101 5.4%
- 9. Overall, 57% of complaints are upheld. Usually, improvements are required as a result.
- 10. A new complaints process from November 2017 Risk assessment Noted as intelligence Frontline resolution Passed to provider to investigate Complaint updated – final A complaint is received Investigation undertaken and investigation report is completed Post investigation response for complaint and complained about Written feedback
- 11. Options for complaint handling Note the information for a planned inspection Frontline resolution – resolve the complaint without the need for an investigation Service investigation – we ask the care service to investigate and report back to us Investigation – by the Care Inspectorate Risk to people experiencing care determines how quickly this starts
- 12. Risk assessment • Are there protection issues? • History of the service • Nature of the complaint and risk to poor outcomes • Likelihood of it happening more than once or to other people • Service’s capacity to improve
- 13. Assessing the seriousness of a complaint High Serious complaints about failings in care that have led to, or are highly likely to, result in poor health and wellbeing outcomes for an individual or individuals i.e. illness or injury Medium Organisational issues that have the potential to present a risk to people experiencing care, e.g. staffing levels, recruitment or training, environmental issues, missed and late visits Low Complaints that do not relate to the provision of care and/or lack sufficient detail to identify or assess risk
- 14. Care Inspectorate response High Inspector investigates and reports to both the complainant and the provider Medium Provider to resolve or investigate to resolve the issue. The provider shares the outcome with the lead inspector for the service. Low The complaints team share the information with the lead inspector for the care service and any other relevant agencies.
- 15. Complaint investigation methodology Maintain and update the record of complaint (ROC) Feedback for complainant and complained about Agree elements for the investigation Write report and sent to both parties. This details: • elements investigated • evidence to uphold • evidence not to uphold • conclusions and action to be taken Post investigation review Visit the service unannounced Interview people and review records Report finalised and on website
- 17. Shifting the culture about complaints in care
- 18. The principles of good complaint handling User-focused: puts the complainant at the heart of the process. Accessible: appropriately and clearly communicated, easily understood and available to all. Simple and timely: as few steps as necessary within an agreed and transparent timeframe. Thorough, proportionate and consistent: provides quality outcomes in all complaints through robust but proportionate investigation and the use of clear quality standards. Objective, impartial and fair: objective, evidence-based and driven by the facts and established circumstances, not assumptions, and this should be clearly demonstrated.
- 19. A good complaints procedure will: Seek early resolution: it aims to resolve complaints at the earliest opportunity, to the person’s satisfaction wherever possible and appropriate. Deliver improvement: it is driven by the search for improvement, using analysis of outcomes to support service delivery and drive service quality improvements.
- 20. Research tells us… People want service to acknowledge their experience and make things better Many services still see complaints as negative Services that have a robust complaint culture of listening to people and responding are learning organisations Most complaints come to the Care Inspectorate where people are not satisfied with response or previous issues raised with services People are hesitant to make complaints
- 22. An apology is more likely to resolve a complaint early than any other action you might take. An apology may be the only practical way of restoring trust and repairing a broken relationship with a person. If you investigate a complaints and find there has been a problem, make an apology.
- 23. SPSO guide on how to make a good apology www.spso.gov.uk
- 24. Supporting complaint handling in care Care services must have robust complaint handling procedures – staff confidence Value complaints as feedback and opportunities for improvement We will publish complaint handling training / development / processes for services, in conjunction with SPSO Possible complaint development days.
Editor's Notes
- The most complaints are in care homes and this has not changed. In some other services we do not get a lot of complaints for example looked after children but what we know is looked after children have a right in advocacy and people use this and through talking with Who Cares and our Young Volunteers people in care use this and complaints are resolved at service level. So people feel listened to and their complaints are resolved. In some sectors we still see complaints as a black mark and not a learning experience so people do not acknowledge and take action. If people in these sectors had good complaint handling complaints to us would reduce. Most if not all complainants have been to the service.
- Most complaints come from friends or relatives by a large margin. Most people are concerned for their loved one or friend. Next is employee or ex employee and while we acknowledge that an ex employee can be so for a reason this does not mean they do not have a legitimate complaint. In our processes we look at this fairly.
- General Health and welfare is top with the main one being around skin care in older people services. Also under this section is care planning for health and welfare being poor. This year we will be publishing an improvement tool called My Plan which will support good personal care planning in care homes for older people. There are lots of established tools for adults with disabilities but very little for older people. We hope this builds capacity in the sector and reduces complaints. Communication is another area we get a lot of complaints around and this really concerns people when they are leaving their loved ones in the services care. Having good communication systems is crucial in care and we will be looking to develop a tool to support this.
- How we take forward complaints we receive the complaint risk assess which determines action whether we note for intelligence, frontline or provider resolution or investigation by the care inspectorate. We have introduced post investigation review for people who do not agree with outcomes which has been in place since November. We have fair decision making processes and we must be able to review all information and explain decision making and if we get this wrong we need to admit this, apologise and rectify this.
- It is in the providers or services interest to deal with complaints on own as this then evidences a service with capacity to improve means we do not investigate and no complaint on the public web. Where we send a complaint to the provider and they do not investigate or they tell us do not agree we will then investigate this complaint. Examples of front line resolution we phone service tell them for example carer not arrived service takes immediate action to remedy. Provider resolution asks the provider to investigate and to inform the caseholding inspection of action they took and outcome.
- Risk assessment is really important to making decision around action we take and ensures we target resources to those situations were people are more at risk.
- These are the levels in the risk assessment that relates to the complaint but then we consider history of the service and capacity to improve.
- This is the action we would take depending on the risk.
- These are seen as the principles of a good complaint handling procedure and what we should use to set up or review an existing procedure. This is taken from Scottish Public Service Ombudsman
- Not everything needs an investigation and but we ask people resolve to the complainants satisfaction we should never be hesitant to say sorry or to learn from complaints. One service calls their procedure ‘gift for improvement’ and this is a good way to look at learning from complaints. We should never be defensive things happen and if we can acknowledge this and take action to resolve the issue but take the learning to ensure this does not happen again this is evidence of a learning organisation.
- We should never underestimate the power of an apology and we should make these to people even in the initial stage a partial apology ‘I am sorry this has been your experience ‘ before you look into the issue. Acknowledge from the start the persons experience and concern. This stops people escalating and taking to the regulator or other bodies. Research has shown that people people want an acknowledgement and it not to happen again. In Scottish Law people cannot use apology as evidence of wrong doing and take to court as some people are afraid of. It is about being service user focussed and a learning organisation.
- This year the care inspectorate will be developing improvement tools to support complaint handling in services and will be holding development days around the country.