The National Complaints Governance and Learning Team (NCGLT) is the national unit within the HSE National Quality Assurance and Verification Division, tasked with developing the systems and supports to deliver on the HSE’s commitment to provide an enhanced (service user) feedback process.
NCGLT were first tasked with the reform of the Your Service Your Say process to ensure that the fundamental right for people to voice opinions, provide comments and to complain would be to the fore, with a focus on creating a positive environment and culture to encourage and learn from feed-back, especially complaints.
These service reforms were also guided by key actions mandated from the Ombudsman’s 2015 Learning to Get Better report. This investigation by the Ombudsman into how hospitals handle complaints highlighted;
- the need to make it easier for people to complain and the HSE’s role in encouraging and supporting them to do so;
- people don’t complain because of the feared negative repercussions—they believe that complaining won’t make a difference;
- the need to create a culture that welcomes complaints, and
- the need to demonstrate how we act upon lessons learned.
To achieve the YSYS Feedback Policy objectives, the HSE has committed to
- Stronger leadership
- national leadership for complaints: NCGLT within the Quality Assurance and Verification Division
- benchmarking the HSE against thirty six recommendations outlined in the Ombudsman report;
- Greater governance
- the appointment of named Complaints Managers with responsibility for leading the complaints management process within Community Healthcare Organisations, Hospital Groups and National Divisions;
- review of delegation of Complaints Officers and Review Officers
- Informing decisions
- development of an online Complaints Management System to record, analyse and report on complaints data.
- Complaints Manager Forum and Complaints Officer Forum – provides a platform to endure that lessons learned from complaints are used to improve services and that those lessons are shared with peers.
