Abstract
There is a growing awareness of the importance and value of complaints and their efficient processing in all organisations, in both the public and private sector.
As the provider of publicly funded health services, the National Health Service (NHS) needs to ensure that the complaints mechanisms that it has in place reflect best practice.
Until April 1996, the complaints procedures were a hotchpot of different systems that had all evolved in different ways and to serve different needs. They had been the subject of criticism from several quarters for some years. They mostly reflected the organisational structures that were in place in the NHS before the 1990 reforms and did not reflect the evolving understanding of what is good practice for complaints procedures.
This changed with effect from April 1 1996. Following a long period of investigation and consultation the Government implemented an overhaul of all complaints procedures in the NHS.
This article explains the old procedures, why they needed to change, examines the new procedure and picks out a few potential anomalies within it.
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