Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department takes to ensure that it adequately captures institutional learning from (a) cases that are referred to the PHSO or (b) serious cases which are managed at a NHS provider or commissioner level.

Responsibility for learning from complaints which are either escalated to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) or managed at National Health Service provider level is managed by the relevant NHS organisation. The Department has worked with the PHSO on the NHS Complaints Standards to support NHS organisations in providing a faster and simpler complaint handling service, with a focus on early resolution of complaints. The Standards also emphasise the importance of senior leaders regularly reviewing any learning which can be taken from complaints and how this should be used to improve services.