Commissioning services

We have published a good practice guide for managing complaints in commissioned and contracted services. This includes where the council has commissioned care services.

Arrangements for complaints

Complaints about commissioned care services must be dealt with under the regulations. The regulations say the council’s ‘responsible person’ must be notified where a complaint is received by the care provider.

Councils should clearly define the role of commissioned care services within the complaints process, and its expectations of those services and complainants when complaints are raised. The regulations say that complaint responses must be sent by the ‘responsible person’. This may be someone authorised to act on their behalf, including care providers.

There should be clear processes for handing complaints between commissioned services and the council and the reverse. The regulations say councils must pass details of complaints about care providers to the provider, even if it has not commissioned the service for the individual service user.

It may be appropriate to allow care services to deal with complaints as a part of the early resolution step of the complaint process. It may not be practical for services to alert the council every time a complaint is received and resolved to the complainant’s satisfaction, however the number of complaints received, and outcomes may form part of regular contract management oversight arrangements.

If a complainant remains unhappy with the care provider’s response, the council should be notified and reach a view on whether the provider should signpost the complainant to the Ombudsman or whether the council should investigate the complaint. Councils do not need to investigate every complaint but may take account of:

• the seriousness of the issues raised;
• the impact on the person complaining or others; and
• The wider impact of any potential faults.

Councils should have processes in place to be able to access care provider records where necessary. This may be through contract arrangements or obtaining consent from complainants to access their records. This supports the effective complaint handling and avoids unnecessary delays as a result of disputes about access to records.

Once a complainant has been signposted to the Ombudsman, we consider this to be the council’s final response, even if the decision has been issued by a care provider acting on its behalf. Therefore, it is important councils set clear expectations for commissioned services about circumstances in which complaints should be escalated to the council.