The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has welcomed Healthwatch England's report, 'Creating a learning culture in social care', published today.

Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman said:

"Complaints offer invaluable learning opportunities for local authorities and care providers to revisit their services, examine where things may have gone wrong and see where improvements can be made.

“We welcome Healthwatch England’s latest report, which echoes our call for local authorities to shift their focus away from complaint volumes to complaint outcomes, the lessons that can be learned and the service improvements that have been made as a result of those complaints.

 “We have always encouraged local authorities and care providers to create an open and transparent culture around complaints and their outcomes, sharing these internally, with service users, their families and with members of the public.

 “Should people want to know more about the complaints we receive, we publish all our decisions on our website and have recently launched an online searchable map of complaint outcomes for all local authorities in England.”

Article date: 28 August 2019