Excerpt from article published by the Daily Telegraph
Britain will face another scandal like Mid Staffs, in which hundreds of patients died needlessly, unless there is a cultural “revolution”, the Public Administration select committee says in a report released on Monday.
MPs say public bodies are increasingly resorting to using “euphemistic” terms such as review, appeal and feedback to describe complaints, a practice that should be banned. They urge David Cameron to create a new minister for complaints to champion those with grievances and overhaul the way that the public sector is run.
Bernard Jenkin, the committee chairman, says: “There needs to be a revolution in the way public services are run, and how the public perceives government.
“As things are, most people believe there is no point in complaining.
“The shocking collapse of care at Mid Staffs hospital should be a warning to the whole public sector that too many managers in public services are in denial about what their customers and staff think about them.
“Unless and until we have a culture of leadership in public services that listens to, values and responds to complaints there will always be the potential for tragedies like Mid-Staffs. Opportunities to improve services and public confidence will be missed again and again.”
Across government, the report finds repeated evidence that officials have failed to deal with complaints in good time, make “grudging” apologies or fail to resolve issues entirely.
It suggests that every government department should be forced to publish information about how many complaints it has handled and resolved each year, alongside details of the lessons learned.
“The aim is not to create bureaucracy or a tick box exercise, but to achieve a greater level of transparency,” it says.
The report also criticises ministers for failing to respond to MPs raising concerns on behalf of their constituents quickly enough or to take up complaints themselves.
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