This month the Ombudsman’s findings highlight how good communication during the complaints process can help complainants understand the decisions being made and how things will be put right
This month we published decision reports from 17 complaints investigated by the Ombudsman. 10 of these were about the Health sector, six about Local Government, and one about Joint Health and Social Care. The outcome of these 17 complaints were:
- Fully upheld: 8
- Some upheld: 3
- Not upheld: 6
Recommendations and feedback
We made 33 recommendations to public bodies. 18 of these were about steps public bodies could take to learn and improve from the complaint. A further 5 recommendations were about how complaints handling could be improved.
The common theme of these recommendations was to ensure that complaint responses
contain all the information needed to explain decisions clearly and accurately to the person making a complaint. It was also highlighted the importance of including information about learning and improvement actions that will be taken. We’ve created useful resources for public bodies on these issues which are available on our website.
We also highlight a case where, following our investigation, we found that the public body had already apologised for failings identified and had taken action to make improvements through appropriate training. We have produced resources on meaningful apologies which can be found on our website.
All our published decision reports can be read in full on our website.