National Care Service - complaints co-design: findings summary

Annex A

Summary of key findings from our research that was sent to participants in advance of the sessions

Complaints and redress

The things we are hearing that are working well include:

• anyone who receives, asks for, or is affected by a social care service can make a complaint
• there is a standardised complaints handling procedure that sets out a clear process for how complaints should be handled once a complaint has been received
• this procedure tries to make sure that complaints are resolved as soon as it is possible
• it is possible for people to make confidential complaints to the Care Inspectorate

There are some things that people feel are not working well:

• some people told us that they find the current complaints process difficult, and that it is not always easy to find out where and how to make a complaint
• some people told us that they experience delays in dealing with their concerns when they are raised informally and that timescales for handling formal complaints can delay complaints being resolved locally
• some people told us that making a complaint uses a lot of energy and that they would like more support to make a complaint, and more support while their complaint is being looked at
• some people told us that they are scared of making a complaint and worry that, if they do, their support might be taken away
• people told us that they wanted to make a complaint to improve their own social care support, the social care support of other people and social care support for people who need social care support in the future. However, this does not always lead to the improvements they hoped for
• the way information about complaints is made publicly available is different across different parts of Scotland. This means it is not possible to understand the number and types of complaints that are being made