NHS Complaint Standards: Learning from organisations’ feedback 

Andrew Medlock, PHSO’s Assistant Director of Standards, Training and Partnerships, gives an update on our work to further develop the NHS Complaint Standards. 

We launched the first version of the NHS Complaint Standards in March 2021. Since then, we have been working with pilot sites across the NHS to test, refine and update the Standards in line with the feedback we received.  

Making complaints count 

At their core, the Complaint Standards set out how organisations providing NHS services should approach complaint handling. They are based on four key pillars:  

• welcoming complaints in a positive way and recognising them as valuable insight for organisations  

• supporting a thorough and fair approach that accurately reflects the experiences of everyone involved  

• encouraging fair and accountable responses that provide open and honest answers as soon as possible  

• promoting a learning culture by supporting organisations to see complaints as opportunities to improve services. 

Building on the good practice that already exists, the Complaint Standards will provide a consistent approach to complaint handling across the NHS. They will: 

• help organisations deliver what service users want when they make a complaint 

• support staff to deliver good complaint handling day in, day out. 

The Complaint Standards are supported by a model complaint handling procedure and detailed guidance on how they can be applied in practice.  

Testing and refining the Standards 

We worked with 11 pilot sites and over 70 ‘early adopters’ across the NHS in 2021 and 2022 to test how the Standards, supporting materials and training can support frontline complaints handling.  

Feedback from organisations taking part in the Complaint Standards pilot has been overwhelmingly positive. NHS staff told us that the support on offer will make a real, practical difference to complaint handling for both staff and service users.  

Their feedback also helped us make improvements to the Standards and guidance. We updated some of the guidance modules in December 2022 and will update further modules in early 2023.   

Embedding the Complaint Standards across the NHS 

Organisations taking part in the pilot also commended the Complaint Standards training PHSO delivered to relevant staff. A mental health organisation said: 

“The training from PHSO was great and staff really wanted to follow the Standards. 

“I thought the delivery of the session was good and interactive. I think all grades of staff would benefit from this training.” 

We are further developing training materials, including an online learning programme. This will be rolled out more widely to help embed the Standards across the NHS starting in March 2023. We will also be using the Standards in our casework from April 2023 onwards. 

We will publish our evaluation report on the Complaint Standards pilot in March. Stay tuned for further updates on our website and across our social media channels.