Nigel Ellis: Indications of serious service failure
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Transcript of Nigel Ellis: Indications of serious service failure
Indications of serious service failure
Nigel Ellis Executive Director, Local Government Ombudsman
The Ombudsman’s experience
• We investigate complaints about councils and independent social care providers
• Free, impartial and final
• If we find something wrong, we recommend action to put it right
• 12,000 complaints looked into last year
• Skewed towards failure
The complainant’s experience
The complainant’s experience
Last year our investigators handled 1,846 complaints about social care
This is the fastest growing area of our work
13.8% increase since
2012
Review of adult social care
complaints 2013
“The council had not considered the risk to George of reducing his care package … it did not have regard to the importance of his dignity and privacy when relying on carers to carry out intimate tasks”
“Care home workers failed to call an ambulance for a vulnerable elderly stroke victim for more than five hours … both the home’s manager and a deputy were aware of Margaret’s situation, but both thought the other had called for assistance. ”
What can we piece together from these individual stories …
And what does it tell us about quality?
Are the lessons from service failure really so hard to see?
They highlight my areas
of greatest risk …
… and tell me what
my users care about.
• Care providers are often unable to resolve complaints at the first attempt – why?
• Given how hard it can be to complain, do we really hear the views of the most vulnerable service users?
Two key questions