Guide to Complaint Handling in Health Care Services

Key principle – desired practice Describe current practice Action required – by whom, when
1. Quality improvement
Quality and risk management teams are
in place to analyse data and inform
organisational changes.
Information about complaints and other
feedback from consumers is regularly
reported to senior management and
quality and risk management teams.
Lessons learnt from complaints are
used for system improvements.
Complaint trends are reviewed regularly
by quality and risk management teams.
Findings from complaints are regularly
communicated to staff.
2. Open disclosure
The organisation has adopted the
national standard on open disclosure.
Staff involved in giving information to
patients are fully informed about the
issues relevant to open disclosure.
Staff are encouraged and supported
to report adverse events.
Information from open discussion of
adverse events is shared throughout the
organisation and used to inform clinical
practice and organisational processes.
32 Setting up your system/tools