Risk/complaints and clinical effectiveness and audit posts at Harrogate hospital

Harrogate & District NHS foundation trust is one of the best small acute hospitals in England with a strong committment to effective governance.

The trust currently has two employment opportunities.

1. A secondment opportunity has arisen in the Medical Directorate Team to cover maternity leave for a planned period of 7 months commencing June 2009. The trust is looking for a dynamic and enthusiastic person with expertise in the management of claims, complaints and risk to support Corporate and Clinical Business Units in delivering the Trust’s risk management requirements.

2. An opportunity has arisen to manage the Clinical Effectiveness and Audit Department and lead on the trust’s approach to clinical effectiveness and assessment of NICE guidance. We are looking for a dynamic and enthusiastic person with the equivalent of 5 years experience and specialist knowledge of clinical effectiveness or NICE guidance in the NHS.

For an informal discussion please contact Andrea Leng, Head of Risk Management or Dr Gray, Medical Director on 01423 554436. Alternatively, please contact Andrea Leng on andrea.leng@hdft.nhs.uk

Listening, Improving, Responding: New Department of Health guidance on dealing with complaints

According to the Department of Health (DH), “One of the key features of high performing organisations is the way that they respond to customers who are unhappy about the service that they have received.”

From April 2009 of a common approach to handling complaints in the NHS and adult social care will be introduced and this provides an opportunity for all organisations to review their local systems so they can both respond flexibly to complaints, concerns and complements and feed the resulting lessons into their work on learning from patients’ feedback to improve services.

The guide Listening, Improving, Responding provides a practical resource that complaints managers and their teams can use to help design excellent customer care systems locally and to support clinical and administrative staff in implementing change.

The new approach focuses on the complainant and enables organisations to tailor a flexible response that seeks to resolve the complainant’s specific concerns. It is based on the principles of good complaints handling, which have been published by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and endorsed by the Local Government Ombudsman:

1. Getting it right
2. Being customer focused
3. Being open and accountable
4. Acting fairly and proportionately
5. Putting things right
6. Seeking continuous improvement

Download the guide Listening, Improving, Responding here.

Spotlight on learning from complaints

The Healthcare Commission has released a report about its experiences dealing with complaints in the NHS, and recommends that trust boards oversee the complaints system in their organisations.

According to the Commission, “Complaints are…..inherently negative feedback for organisations. However, the process of dealing with them should be viewed as a valuable and positive opportunity for the NHS to learn from mistakes and bring about real improvements in services.”

The report, titled Spotlight on complaints, makes 12 key recommendations to the NHS:

1. Acknowledge the person’s right to complain.
2. Ensure that the complaint is assessed upon receipt, so that any concerns about a risk to the safe care of other patients can be identified promptly.
3. Clarify what the person’s concerns are and manage expectations about possible outcomes to the investigation of the complaint.
4. Consider the various options for resolving the complaint – for example, a meeting or reimbursement of costs.
5. Ensure that the person is kept informed of progress throughout the life of the complaint.
6. Confirm to the person what support is available to assist in making a complaint – for example, the Independent Complaints Advocacy Service (ICAS).
7. Take statements from, and interview if necessary, those staff involved in the events leading up to the complaint. This should be done as soon as possible, so that events are still fresh in the memory.
8. Where necessary, obtain clinical advice on the matters raised. This advice must have a high degree of independence – for example, by obtaining advice from the trust’s medical director or from a clinician at another trust.
9. Ensure that any letters to the person making the complaint are written in plain English and are as free as possible of clinical or other technical terminology.
10. Offer an apology if appropriate.
11. Ensure that general learning is taken from specific complaints and is embedded into the system of care for the future.
12. Ensure that the boards of trusts are satisfying themselves that all the above are happening.

Download the full report, Spotlight on complaints, here.