Senior Complaints Officer

Job overview

The post holder is accountable to the Associate Director of Quality and Governance but report to the Concerns and Complaints Manager.

The post holder will respond to compliments, concerns and complaints relating to services offered by Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust. The post holder will ensure that the most complex/high profile complaint case are managed in a sensitive and timely manner through close working with clinical and non-clinical staff across the Trust. This will include complaints that have exceeded initial timescales

Main duties of the job

The post holder will ensure statutory and organisational requirements are met, that complaints are investigated thoroughly and impartiality and that all complainants receive a full, high quality and timely response in accordance with the Department of Health’s key principles of complaints handling.

• Listening
• Responding
• Improving

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Complaints provide a vital insight about people’s experiences and how these services can be improved. Complainants must be informed of service improvements that have been made a result of their complaint and the Trust must learn from its complaints.

The post holder will also provide day to day advice, expertise and guidance for the concerns and complaints teams acting as a point of contact for the team to deal workflow issues. The post holder will escalate issues or concerns to the Concerns and Complaints Manager.

Key Result Areas & Performance:

• Take on a caseload of complaints including complex complaints and complaints that have exceeded the initially prescribed time in which the Trust expected to have resolved them.
• Work as part of the central complaints team, alongside specific clinical groups, and in liaison with complainants, advocates and staff at all levels within the Trust.
• Provide expert advice and guidance on regulation and casework issues to the concerns and complaints team. Co-ordinate responses to the most complex complaints received by the Trust and, in doing so, ensuring that each complaint is listened to, understood, properly considered, appropriately responded to and learnt from.
• Draft complaint response letters for the most complex complaints for signature by the Chief Executive.
• Support the teams' reporting work by regularly auditing the use of the Ulysses complaints module.
• Analyse complaints received, identifying trends, themes and opportunities for improving the quality of the Trust’s service and experiences of service users.
• Escalate complex and/or high-profile patient complaints and, where necessary, liaise directly with service providers and clinical staff on behalf of patients.
• Contribute to complaints reports/KPI dashboards.
• Provide advice, support and guidance to divisions on resolving concerns and complaints via local resolution.
• Chair local resolution meetings between complainants and divisional staff.
• Train complaints staff and participate in training other staff groups across the Trust on how to successfully deal with complaints.
• Organise the rota to ensure the service is covered during leave or absence of complaints officers.
• Deputise in the absence of the Concerns & Complaints Manager

Applicant requirements

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.