Issue - meetings

UPDATE ON CORPORATE COMPLAINTS AND STATUTORY COMPLAINTS FOR QUARTER 3

Meeting: 05/03/2020 - Adjudication & Review Committee (Item 19)

19 UPDATE ON CORPORATE COMPLAINTS AND STATUTORY COMPLAINTS FOR QUARTER 3 pdf icon PDF 298 KB

Report and appendices attached.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The report before Members updated on complaint handling performance, across all Council services.

 

Attached to the report were appendices that contained written information for Members to consider on complaint statistics for Quarter 3, indicating numbers received and performance on timeliness and quality.

 

The Council had received 567 Stage 1 complaints during the period October to December 2019. 86% of them (486) were responded to within the required timescale of ten days, which represented a slight drop in performance from 92% in Quarter 2.

 

The Council received 98 requests for escalation to Stage 2 of the process, 80% (78) of them dealt with within 25 days, in line with current timescales, which represented an  increase in performance from 69% in Quarter 2.

 

This equated to an escalation request rate of 17% however, this was reduced to 5% when considering the number of cases that were not escalated to Stage 2.

 

The cumulative performance across Stages 1 and 2 for the quarter was 85%, compared to 78% for the same period in the previous year. At that time, the Council received 480 complaints, 376 of which were completed within timescales.

 

Overall performance this year had improved while Services had been handling higher numbers of complaints.

 

The number of statutory complaints received in 2019-20 by Adult Social Care in Quarter 3 totalled 27 and Children’s Services totalled 12. Of the 27 Adult Social Care complaints, eight had been withdrawn due to either consent not being received or further information not being provided. Of the 12 Children’s complaints, three had been withdrawn. There had been a decrease in the number of complaints of six from Quarter 2 (18)  for Children’s Services, while there has been an increase of 15 in Adult Social Care complaints from Q2 (12).

 

For Adults, of those complaints responded to in Quarter 3 (27), 25 were Adult Social Care, whilst two were third parties (external providers). Of the Adult Social Care complaints, 92% were responded to within the 20 day timescale. Of the two not responded to within timescale, one involved an external contractor, the other due to telephone conference arrangements.  Of the two external provider complaints both were responded to within the 25 day timescale. Of those complaints responded for Children’s in Quarter 3 (12), 83% were responded to within the 20 day timescale.

 

 

 

There were five Stage 2 requests for Children’s Services, with two not progressing, one ongoing and one on hold.  There was one Stage 3 Review Panel request in Quarter 3.  

 

Adult Social Care complaints in Quarter 3 were largely about home care in relation to late calls, or not being happy about the care being provided. There were also complaints concerning invoices/fees charged relating to disputes around times charged for care. This is an ongoing issue and continues to be a high priority within the Adult Social Care action plan. Children’s Services complaints continued to be about interventions by Children’s Services, and in relation to support around Special Guardianship.

 

During Quarter 3 there had been  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19