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Health and Social Care Bill

This amendment is important in principle. Many groups feel disenfranchised and unable to complain because they are frightened that their complaint will rebound against them. The noble Earl, Lord Onslow, has pointed out the problems for patients in care homes, but a lot of patients in receipt of care in the community feel that they cannot complain against the medical side—the GP, district nurses and so on—or the social worker, who may be the person doing the budget assessment to determine their care and care package. They are frightened of complaining. If they do complain, they fear that there may be a vindictive rebound against them. In order to inspect the true quality of a service, how it handles its complaints can be extremely telling. Complaints that go through NHS trusts are, by and large, pretty well handled, but they are better handled in some trusts than in others. In the trusts where they are better handled, one also has the sense that the whole attitude is more patient-focused. The big principle behind this amendment is in terms of collecting important data on how patients or clients who feel that they have not been handled properly are able to express their voice.