Listening and Learning: A review of complaint handling by the NHS in England Kathryn Hudson Deputy Health Service Ombudsman

Listening and Learning The NHS commits: When mistakes happen, to acknowledge them, apologise, explain what went wrong and put things right quickly and effectively. To ensure that the organisation learns lessons from complaints and uses them to improve services.

North East: 484 (19) North West: 1,632 (24) Yorkshire and the Humber: 960 (19) West Midlands: 1,186 (22) East Midlands: 828 (19) East of England: 1,215 (21) London: 2,727 (36) South West: 1,182 (23) South Central: 729 (18) South East Coast: 1,001 (23) Listening and Learning – complaints received by region

Reasons for not investigating health complaints Outside our remit Not properly made Premature Discretionary Withdrawn by the complainant 58% of complaints closed Listening and Learning

The Ombudsman’s Principles Getting it right Being customer focused Being open and accountable Acting fairly and proportionately Putting things right, and Seeking continuous improvement Listening and Learning

North East: 20% (1) North West: 61% (17) Yorkshire and the Humber: 50% (10) West Midlands: 55% (6) East Midlands: 36% (4) East of England: 43% (3) London: 67% (22) South West: 75% (9) South Central: 70% (7) South East Coast: 82% (14) Listening and Learning – upheld or partly upheld complaints

Themes from our casework Apology Record keeping Giving thorough, adequate explanation Listening and Learning

Sharing our learning Working with trusts Dialogue with the NHS Information sharing Data collection Listening and Learning

Listen harder – so that you can learn more. Develop better – not more, just better – information about complaints. Make better use of all the resources – and all the internal and external assurance mechanisms – at your disposal – including the Ombudsman.