Delivering impact from our casework
Every year we make over 1,000 recommendations to NHS bodies and government departments and agencies to improve the services that they provide, including how they handle complaints.
Many of these recommendations are steps that all organisations should take, such as effective communication to improve services and avoid failures. This year we want to review whether we are making the right types of recommendations and if they have the impact that we want to see when we make them.
Learning from complaints can bring change and help improve public services and the relationship between people and the state. This requires us to be transparent and open as an organisation, publishing our casework decisions and our data. Over the next year, we will increase the number of decisions that we publish.
We will establish a strategic priorities framework and identify a small number of themes where we can achieve a measurable impact. By taking a more strategic approach towards these themes, we hope to be able to work in partnership with stakeholders to deliver greater impact.
Our aims on impact are to:
- review whether we are making the right types of recommendations and if they have the impact that we want to see, while aligning with other key stakeholders
- work in partnership to co-produce reports and recommendations to avoid duplication and align with other key stakeholders
- increase the number of decisions that we publish
- increase the amount of data and information we make available
- embed the digital change to allow us to analyse our casework and clearly identify systemic issues where we can make a difference.
Strategic themes approach
To progress to a more proactive service we need to look at where we can achieve the most success. By focusing our efforts on a small number of strategic themes we can prioritise where we want to hold systemic investigations and make thoughtful policy recommendations to improve public services.
Public Value Model
Our Public Value Model helps us prioritise cases with the highest potential impact. It is a scored test that asks four key questions, focusing on the seriousness of the impact on the affected person and whether investigating the complaint could lead to a wider public benefit.