National Care Service - complaints co-design: findings summary

About NCS Complaints

The Independent Review of Adult Social Care in Scotland recommended the creation of an NCS. It also made recommendations to improve the complaints and redress processes in social care. The recommendations were:

• recommendation 9: when things do not work well for people and their rights have not been upheld, they must have rapid recourse to an effective complaints system and to redress
• recommendation 12: a new NCS should prioritise improved information and advice for carers, and an improved complaints process

The initial consultation on the NCS^[1] showed strong support for creating a Charter setting out people’s rights and responsibilities when accessing health and social care support through the NCS. The consultation responses broadly agreed with creating a simple point of access for feedback and complaints about all parts of social care, social work and community health.

In 2022, the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill was introduced to the Scottish Parliament. The Bill provides a framework for setting up the NCS, allowing space to work out the detail through co-design.

The Bill sets out that:

• Scottish Ministers will create a service for receiving and allocating complaints about services provided by the NCS
• Scottish Ministers will have the power to make regulations to improve how complaints about the NCS, and wider social care services, are handled

In February 2024, the Scottish Parliament agreed to the general principles of the Bill. It is currently in Stage 2, where amendments to the Bill can be suggested and considered by the Scottish Parliament.