Complaints management
Chapter 6 – monitoring and continual improvement
You should use the lessons from complaints to continually improve you practice's business practices. This brings a dividend on the time and money spent managing complaints.
6.1Monitoring
You should consistently record relevant complaints information centrally to enable effective monitoring. You should review information regularly with senior management. The timetable depends on your practice's size and the number of complaints it receives, but a quarterly review should generally be considered reasonable.
Relevant information should include all of the following:
- summary of the key information documented on receipt. See 4.1,
- the outcomes of any investigation
- details of remedies provided
- a note about complaints externally reviewed and the outcomes
By regularly reviewing this information, you can:
- identify trends in complaints and areas of service needing improvement
- assess whether policy or procedure changes are reducing the level of complaints
- assess the effectiveness of your complaints management process in resolving complaints internally
- build up an understanding of what are appropriate remedies in particular complaints
6.2Continual improvement
You should keep reviewing your complaints management process and consider how to update and improve it. You should encourage innovation and recognise good quality complaints management behaviour within the practice.
You should consider whether any failures in service are one off, or a part of a wider systemic issue. With systemic issues, you should go beyond the retainer in hand to get the most out of your complaints management process. You should consider:
- training on compliance with procedures
- changing high level procedures in light of new situations
- changing specific work practices to avoid repeating a problem
When considering changes, you should involve staff members who implement procedures or work practices to fully understand the practical implications.