Understanding complaints

A chief nurse post typically has the remit of both the leadership of the Trust's Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) and complaints teams, in addition to the professional leadership of registrants. Over the past decade, the issues that have been reported to me for decisions have changed. This is due to a number of reasons, such as greater public awareness of what to expect in healthcare and of how to raise concerns. Workplace culture is also changing, particularly in terms of application of the 2010 Equality Act, and an evidence base from academics such as West (2017) in raising of awareness of the impact of culture on the quality of care that we deliver.

Of interest, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is currently trialling a contextual tool to understand the culture that registrants are practising within when incidents have occurred.

The NMC states

‘Our role is to set the standards in the Code, but these are not just our standards. They are the standards that patients and members of the public tell us they expect from health professionals. They are the standards shown every day by those on our register.’