Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has taken recent steps to (a) review the level of satisfaction and (b) seek views on how better to resolve the disputes of patients using the complaints systems in the NHS.

National Health Service complaints are initially handled at a local level, so learning lessons from complaints, including the levels of satisfaction or how to improve complaints resolution, is led by the relevant local NHS organisation. At a national level, the Government is working with stakeholders to improve the way the NHS listens to and responds to complaints, including through the NHS Complaint Standards. The NHS Complaint Standards were developed by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman by drawing on their experience of patient complaints and in collaboration with stakeholders, and they provide guidance to the NHS on a model complaint handling service, which includes a particularly focus on early resolution and on learning from complaints.