Learning from Your Experience Concerns Annual Report

2015-2016

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Contents

1 Welcome Page 3

2 Introduction Page 4

3 Our Arrangements Page 5

4 Our Achievements Page 6

5 Our Numbers Page 7

6 Our Compliance Page 10

7 Our Trends & Themes Page 11

8 Your Thanks Page 12

9 Some of our Learning Page 13

10 Assurance Page 14

11 Our Plans for 2016/17 Page 15

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1. Our Chief Executive’s

Welcome

Tracy Myhill

Chief Executive

I am delighted to introduce this report for the

year 2015/16. It is our fifth Welsh Ambulance

Services NHS Trust Concerns Annual Report

since the introduction of the NHS (Concerns,

Complaints and Redress Arrangements)

(Wales) Regulations 2011.

The year 2015/16 was a year of progress and

transition. In October 2015, we began our

new Clinical Response Model Pilot which

means that we will prioritise those patients

with the greatest clinical need and

concentrate on the quality of care that we

provide.

We responded to 1,885 Red category calls in

March 2016, with an average response time

of 6 minutes and 15 seconds. This means

that if you are suffering with a life-threatening

condition, we will still send the nearest

available resource as fast as possible. But for

less serious conditions, we are going to be

measured on how well we treat you and how

often we provide treatment

at the scene or, refer you to the most

appropriate service, for example, your GP.

Your treatment could be provided by a

paramedic coming to see you or a paramedic

or nurse providing advice over the telephone.

“It is our purpose to be a caring and

responsive ambulance service for the

people in Wales”

We are thankful during this important period

for feedback – when we have got it right and

where we could have certainly done better –

and would encourage anyone who wants to

share their experience of the Welsh

Ambulance Service to please get in touch.

“ideas of what we can do together to make

things better are warmly welcomed”

We are keen to get into as many communities

as possible so that we can share what we do

and get feedback about our service from our

patients and their families.

It is a privilege to lead this organisation. I am

humbled by the clinical skill and compassion

of our staff in caring for the most vulnerable

and sick people in our communities.

I look forward to leading the Trust in this new

phase of our development and engaging with

you to shape our services.

Tracy Myhill

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2. Introduction

Our vision is to be a leading ambulance

service providing the best possible care

through a skilled, professional and healthy

workforce.

We need to learn from your feedback

regarding our behaviours and the services

that we deliver to enable us to achieve this.

Concerns and compliments provide vital

information for us to learn about what is going

well and what is not. This learning then allows

us to develop the services that we provide.

We are a national ambulance service,

providing services across Wales. We provide

an emergency service, non-emergency

transport and health advice. We believe in

integrated health care, with all part of the

healthcare system in Wales working together.

We have an organisation of experts to deliver

the services that we provide and being a

national organisation means that we have the

opportunity to provide consistent and

sustainable services in collaboration with

other healthcare providers in Wales.

In 2015/16, we responded to 473,272

emergency incidents, we have scheduled

958,253 Patient Care Service non-emergency

journeys to hospital appointments and we

have received 327,693 calls for advice to

NHS Direct Wales.

We receive expressions of concerns from a

number of sources, including complaints from

the public, incident reports from staff, legal

claims from staff and the public. We also

receive and record compliments and thanks

received from the public.

In 2015/16 we received 1419 complaints, 79

legal claims and our staff reported 1578

incidents relating to patient safety.

We actively encouraged people to contact us

to share their experience whether it is positive

or negative, through our ‘Have Your Say’ and

‘Putting Things Right’ teams.

This year, we have continued to increase our

contact with the public and we have been

able to resolve 68% of concerns raised with

us over the telephone informally as ‘on the

spot’ concerns.

We have established a route for national

learning from concerns to be implemented

through the Trust’s Organisational Learning

Group. The group has senior representatives

from across Wales who can agree on

research and actions to be taken based on

the evidence that is presented to them. More

details of learning are in section 9 of this

report.

More

information is available on our website at

www.ambulance.wales.nhs.uk .

“For every two

formal complaints

received this year,

the Trust received

three compliments”

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3. Our Arrangements

This year we commissioned an internal

review of the way in which we handle

concerns to identify improvements to the

service that we provide to you. The review

identified many areas of good practice and

some challenges to the way we handle

complaints across the Trust.

Good practice was identified in the handling

of more complex cases where patients may

have come to harm and we engage those

raising concerns into our Redress

arrangements to identify if there is a

qualifying liability. Good practice was also

identified in those investigations conducted

jointly with our Health Board colleagues. In

these cases we are able to provide one joint

response to you to address all of the

concerns that you raise.

The review found challenges with the

availability of front-line managers to

undertake investigations and with isolated

working because our Complaints, Patient

Safety, Safeguarding and Partners in Health

Teams are all separate functions in different

areas of the organisation.

As a consequence of the review, the Trust’s

Assistant Director of Quality & Nursing with

the support of an independent advisor was

commissioned to implement a 100 day plan to

deliver changes recommended and agreed by

the Trust Board.

The most significant changes have included

bringing the Trust’s separate teams together

within the responsibility of our recently

appointed Executive Director of Quality,

Safety & Patient Experience, Claire Bevan.

We are now reviewing our team structures to

ensure that following the amalgamation of the

teams, we are utilising effectively, the staff

and skills we have to improve our customer

service support and the identification of

learning from your experiences.

We encourage earlier contact with

complainants over the telephone. Where it is

appropriate, we now provide people with a

choice as to whether they would like to

discuss their concerns with someone before

making a decision to make a formal

complaint. This has resulted in less complex

concerns being resolved quickly for

complainants without the need to wait for a

formal investigation to be undertaken.

The Trust’s concerns are monitored by our

Quality, Patient Experience & Safety

Committee. We welcome the attendance of

members of the public to our committee

meetings.

The Trust’s Redress Panel continues to be

responsible for reviewing investigations which

identify errors that have occurred. The Panel

then decides whether to enter into the

Redress arrangements and if there is a

qualifying liability in tort, as described in the

Concerns Regulations. Arrangements are in

place for expert support to be provided for

concerns investigations from Patient Safety

Managers, Clinical Support Officers,

independent external experts, legal experts

and external patient advocates.

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4. Our Achievements

Strategic Commitment – we are fully committed to consideration of all

aspects of patient, family and carer feedback to ensure that the services

provided by us are meeting the expectations of users and that there is learning

from the things that go right and those things that go wrong. We have

appointed an Executive Director of Quality, Safety & Patient Experience to

lead our strategic approach to listening to staff and the public.

Learning from Experience – we are reviewing the trends and themes from concerns in more

detail from a service user and patient experience perspective. This will enable evidence to be

provided to the Organisational Learning Group for implementation of changes to improve the

experience of our patients and service users.

Investment in our Risk Management System – we have upgraded our

software system to improve the data that we collect. We have

implemented a new code set to capture more detailed trends and themes

from complaints in 2016/17.

Increased contact with you – we have increased our engagement with

the public to discuss concerns and the services that we provide. This year we have been in contact

with 958 people to discuss and resolve their concerns informally over the telephone.

Reduced Re-opened Cases – we have seen a further improvement this year in our work to

improve the quality of our responses to you, to ensure that we investigate once and investigate

well to resolve your concerns with our initial response. Instances of re-opened complaints this year

have reduced from thirty seven reported in the previous year to thirteen in this year.

Personal Injury and Road Traffic Claims – we have maintained our policy to reduce expenditure

on legal costs by managing as many personal injury claims as possible and all road traffic claims

in-house. The Trust has an NHS service level agreement for the provision of claims management,

related legal advice and support services.

Reduced Harm Gradings – we are undertaking more detailed investigations as part of our

Redress arrangements to review General Practitioner and hospital records to consider hospital

treatment and patient outcomes. This has enabled us to provide assurance to those raising

concerns with us and also to demonstrate more effectively where the outcomes of concerns show

that no harm has been caused to our patients.

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5. Our Numbers

In 2015/16, the Trust received 1419 concerns

of which 384 were formal complaints. This is

less formal complaints than in the previous

year when the Trust received 1420 concerns,

of which 453 were formal complaints.

We have resolved more concerns quickly ‘on

the spot’, with 880 resolved in 2014/15 and

962 resolved in 2015/16.

The expression of concern that we received

are split between our services and remain

consistent with the previous year with:

51% Emergency Services

41% Non-Emergency Patient Transport

5% NHS Direct Wales

3% Other Support Services

In 2015/16, 45% of complaints were

regarding the timeliness of our services and

the delay in ambulance attendance.

Although there has been a 5% increase in the

percentage of complaints about delays, we

have seen a reduction in the percentage of

complaints with a grading of harm. 71% of

complaints are coded as ‘no harm’ in

comparison to 48% in 2014/15.

This is because of the development of our

Redress Process where we work with

patients and their families to obtain their

hospital and GP records to consider ongoing

hospital care and patient outcomes to identify

if harm has been caused.

NHS organisations in Wales are required to

report upon compliance with complaints

acknowledgement and response times.

We have improved our compliance with the

two working day acknowledgement target by

two percentage points this year to 86%.

Our compliance to the 30 working day

response target for formal complaints is 16%

overall, ranging from 35% in November to 7%

in March. This is not where the Trust would

like to be. The improvement plan achieved

35% in November 2015, however due to

operational pressures, this was not

sustainable. To address this, we are

implementing changes that we have outlined

in our plans for 2016/17.

Legal Claims

We have received 79 legal claims this year

which include 10 clinical negligence claims,

32 personal injury claims from the public and

37 personal injury claims from staff. This is

slightly higher than the 71 claims that we

received in 2014/15.

This year we have processed 357 road traffic

collision claims brought against the Trust.

Adverse Incidents

Our staff have reported 1578 adverse

incidents in 2015/16 that were related to

patient safety. Of these, we have reported 53

to the Welsh Government as cases that we

investigated as serious adverse incidents.

The main theme in our adverse incidents is

cases categorised in our ‘access, admission,

transfer and discharge’ category which is

what we would expect to see from the

ambulance services that we provide.

962On the Spot

Concerns

79Claims

73Joint Investigations with Health Boards

384Formal

Complaints

1578Patient Safety

Incidents Reported

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Figure 1: Concerns by Service Area

Service Area Complaints inc OTS

Joint Investigations

Incidents Claims

EMS Control Centre 347 25 128 2 EMS Operations 319 33 1120 52 PCS Control Centre 219 4 14 0 PCS Operations 350 8 212 16 NHS Direct Wales 69 3 11 0 Other 42 0 93 9 TOTAL 1346 73 1578 79

*EMS: Emergency Medical Service PCS: Patient Care Service OTS: On the Spot Concern

Figure 3 shows the Trust‘s activity to put this into context

Figure 2: Concerns by Health Board Area

Health Board Area

Complaints inc OTS

Joint Investigations

Incidents Claims

Betsi Cadwaladr 308 34 224 19 A B Morgannwg* 166 14 251 7 Hywel Dda 101 7 166 9 Powys 52 0 97 4 Aneurin Bevan 276 6 373 18 Cardiff & Vale 211 8 221 9 Cwm Taf 163 1 128 11 NHS Direct Wales Other

69 0

3 0

118 -

1 1

TOTAL 1346 73 1578 79 *Abertawe Bro Morgannwg

Figure 3: Concerns in Relation to Trust Activity

Service Activity Complaint Incident Claim EMS (999 incidents) 473,272 1 in 654 incs 1 in 379 8,764 PCS (journeys) 958,253 1 in 1,649 jnys 1 in 4,240 59,890 NHSDW (calls) 327,693 1 in 4,551 calls 1 in 29,790 -

Figure 4: A Comparison of Complaint Activity by Type of

Complaint

Figure 5: Founded or Unfounded?

The Trust records data on whether formal complaint investigations

have come to a founded or unfounded decision. In 2015/16, of the

457 formal complaints, 352 have been resolved by the beginning of

June 2016.

Founded Decision 2015/16 2014/15 Complaint Upheld 48 (11%) 49 (11%) Complaint Partially Upheld 75 (16%) 69 (15%) Complaint Not Upheld 196 (43%) 136 (30%) Investigation underway 105 (23%) 86 (19%) Not recorded 33 (7%) 113 (25%) TOTAL 457 453

68

83

87

73

35

54

91

39

463

369

362

345

312

627

880

962

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

2012/13

2013/14

2014/15

2015/16

Joint Investigations with the Health Boards

Formal Complaints (handled through Redress Process)

Formal Complaints (Regulation 24)

On the Spot Concerns

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Figure 6: Primary Subject of Complaint

Primary Subject Complaints

2015/16 Percentage

2015/16 Comparison

2014/15

999 Call Software 2 <0.1% 0.6% Attitude 150 <11% 13% Clinical Care 36 <2.5% 3.2% Communication 119 >8.3% 6.8% General Care 84 >6% 4.5% Service Provision 226 16% 16% Driving 48 >3.4% 3% Timeliness 639 >45% 39.8% Vehicle 20 <1.4% 2% Welsh Language 2 <0.1% 0.2% Other 93 <7% 11% TOTAL 1419 (% to nearest point)

< Decrease compared to previous year > Increase compared to previous year

Figure 7: Final Grading of the Resolved Formal Complaints Figures for 2015/16 taken from 352/457 resolved formal complaints at the

time of this report in June 2016.

Grading 2015/16 2014/15 2013/14

Grade 1 – No Harm 251 (71%) 187 (48%) 130 (25%) Grade 2 – Low Harm 98 (28%) 158 (40%) 233 (45%) Grade 3 – Moderate Harm 3 (0.9%) 41 (10%) 134 (26%) Grade 4 – Severe Harm 0 4 (1%) 13 (3%) Grade 5 – Potential Death 0 2 (0.5%) 4 (1%) Ungraded 0 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

The Trust’s Redress Panel is working to gather detailed information in

cases where there is a suggestion that harm has been caused to a

patient. This is enabling the Trust to support families to review

medical records and gain expert opinions to provide assurance in

cases where there has been no harm caused. It is likely that the

continuation of this work will show a further reduction in the harm

grading of cases next year as we develop our investigation process.

Figure 8: Primary Subject of the Patient Safety Incidents

Primary Category of Patient Safety Incident Reported

2015/16

Comparison 2014/15

Access, transfer & discharge 524 396 Deployment issue 117 204 Equipment/medical device 186 135 Clinical Assessment/diagnosis/test 96 125 Emergency call taking software 75 90 Treatment or procedure 75 79 Patient slips, trips & falls 92 73 Patient contact/collision with object 62 62 Consent & communication 38 56 Medication, drugs or infusion 51 44 Infrastructure, staffing, facilities 23 42 IT, radio, telecommunications 39 40 NHS Direct call handling issues 25 37 Care monitoring & review Patient Centre Response Matrix

23 23

32 -

Protection of vulnerable adults 19 31 Infection control/exposure to fluids 18 28 NHS Direct telephone triage tool 15 22 Documentation 24 17 Mental capacity issue 5 17 Child welfare issue 17 16 Patient self-harm whilst it Trust care Other

10 21

14 28

TOTAL 1578 1588

This year, the Trust received 1578 adverse incident reports from staff

and our Health Board colleagues relating to potential patient safety

incidents. The Trust’s incident reports are submitted into the Welsh

Government National Reporting Learning System and the data is

used to develop guidance and tools to improved patient safety at a

local level. The Trust actively encourages incident reporting to

promote a learning culture within the organisation. This year the

Trust reported 53 incidents as potential serious adverse incidents.

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6. The Trust’s Compliance

Formal Complaint Acknowledgement

2 Working Days

Formal Complaint Response

30 Working Days

Formal Complaints

Redress Process Responses

Redress Process Outcomes

% of formal investigations that established a

Qualifying Liability

Formal & Redress Complaints

384 Acknowledged within

2 Working Days

328 (86%)

2015/16 2014/15

Formal & Redress Complaints

453 Acknowledged within

2 Working Days

380 (84%)

Formal Complaints

345 Response within

30 Working Days

54 (16%)

Formal & Joint Complaints

540 Response within

30 Working Days

75 (14%)

Redress Case Responses

0% 30 Days

36% 6 Months

96% 12 Months (59% closed at time of annual report)

Redress Case Responses

0% 30 Days

76% 6 Months

100% 12 Months (44% closed at time of annual report)

Redress Case Outcomes

42 No Liability Reg 24

12 Liability Reg 26

(91 handled through Redress

37 remained under investigation at time

of annual report)

Redress Case Outcomes

13 No Liability Reg 24

4 Liability Reg 26

(39 handled through Redress

22 remained under investigation at time

of annual report)

Formal Complaint Investigations

(inc formal, joint, redress)

457 Regulation 26 Cases

4 (0.9%) 77% cases resolved at

time of report

Formal Complaint Investigations

(inc formal, joint, redress)

540 Regulation 26 Cases

12 (2%)

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7. Our Trends & Themes

Consistency in Numbers

We have seen consistency in the numbers of

concerns that we have received this year in

comparison to the previous year.

2015/16 2014/15

Complaints 1419 1420

Incidents 1578 1588

Claims 79 71

Primary Subject of Complaints

The primary subject of complaints continues to

be ‘timeliness’. This category has increased

by 5% to 45% of all concerns received this

year being coded into this category.

Re-opened Cases

The Trust has seen a reduction in the

numbers of re-opened complaint cases again

this year from 46 cases equating to 4% in

2014/15 to 13 cases equating to less than 1%

in 2015/16.

We have achieved this by increasing our

contact with complainants and involving them

in our investigations from the outset.

Legal Claims

The Trust has received 10 clinical negligence

claims and 69 personal injury claims. The

case split is consistent with the previous year.

The most significant trend in personal injury

claims from the public relates to road traffic

collisions with Trust vehicles as following an

incident, members of the public progress a

personal injury claim. Those from staff are

related to manual handling incidents and slips

that have occurred at work.

The Trust’s clinical negligence claims this

year, have categories consistent with the

previous year, relating to poorly completed

documentation, inappropriate advice, failure to

identify available resources and failure to

adhere to policy or procedures.

Adverse Incidents

The Trust has seen a slight reduction in the

number of patient safety incidents reported by

staff. In 2015/16 1578 were reported in

comparison to 1588 in 2014/15.

There has been an increase in incidents

associated with ‘access’ related to emergency

ambulance services and a reduction in

‘deployment’ of ambulance issues.

Serious Adverse Incidents

There had been an increase in our adverse

incidents associated with delayed ambulance

responses to emergency calls. A contributory

factor in these delays has been delays in

ambulances being able to handover patients

at emergency departments. This then restricts

the emergency ambulances that we have

available to respond to other 999 calls in the

community.

The Trust is working closely with its Health

Board colleagues to implement escalation

plans to relieve this pressure at times of high

demand for ambulance services.

Data Capture

We have designed and implemented a new

coding structure for complaints to enable us to

capture more detailed information regarding

the concerns that we receive in 2016/17. This

will allow us to capture multiple themes from

complaints to identify learning for service

development.

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8. Your Thanks

In 2015/16, the Trust has received 728

accolades and letters of thanks from patients

and their friends and family. This is consistent

with the 724 that we received last year.

The Trust grouped the compliments into the

following themes:

Good Impressions (353)

Good Care Received (231)

Going beyond duty of care (58)

Involvement (37)

Understanding (49)

The top five sub-categories of our

compliments are recorded as:

Good care and attention (197)

Prompt service (112)

Professional attitude of staff (103)

Good advice received (68)

Exceptional support provided (51)

We value your feedback and ensure that where we have enough information, we provide the thanks to the staff involved in caring for those people who contact us. The Trust share our feedback on our website at www.ambulance.wales.nhs.uk . Here is some of the feedback the Trust has received.

Robert, 27 – 29 March 2016

I would like to thank the rapid response

paramedic from the Bassaleg depot for his

professionalism on Sunday, along with his

colleagues from Abergavenny for all doing

a fantastic job and putting me at ease. To

me you went above and beyond your duty

and for that I cannot thank you enough.

Anonymous – 5 January 2016

I was compelled last year to mail you and

praise your service [which is usually not

publicly praised enough]. I am recovering

from a recent stroke and fell downstairs

Saturday 2nd Jan 2016 and suffered a

severe break to my ankle. An ambulance

arrived in a short time and the service

was excellent from the staff. Their

manner, attitude and professionalism

was second to none even though your

service was ludicrously busy that

particular day, as was Morriston hospital.

I`d be grateful if my appreciation was

passed on to the members of staff

involved and, even if only to redress the

balance in the press etc you are welcome

to use this communication in any way you

wish. Again, many thanks

Margaret, 74 – 18 May 2016

I cannot fault this service. They have never

let me down and the drivers are all so polite.

Thank you!

David, 49 – May 2016

Thank you for the work carried out on

14/04/2016. Paramedics were both

excellent when assisting my mother, aged

75 had collapsed in the home. She suffers

from Alzheimer’s which makes it very

hard for communication to diagnose

problems. Both paramedics showed

professionalism and reassurance that

was a great help, not only with my mother

but also with my father aged 81 yrs, by

explaining to him what was happening

and why. Once again thank you to them

both. Yours sincerely.

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9. Some of our Learning

Each time we deal with a complaint, a claim,

and an incident or when we record a letter of

thanks, we learn something from your

experience that is valuable to us. Over the

course of this year we have implemented lots

of learning and development at a local level

and in cases where an issue impacts

everybody; we change things nationally

across Wales. These are some of the changes

we have made as a result of your concerns

this year.

Patients who have fallen

The Trust has received lots of complaints

regarding occasions where someone has

fallen and they experience a

long wait for a response.

These patients can often wait

for longer whilst our

paramedics are dealing with a high demand

from other immediately life threatening calls.

We have now started to work with partners

and volunteers across Wales to put alternative

support arrangements in place for people who

have fallen to help them when they fall and to

reduce the risk of them falling again.

Dementia Friendly Organisation

The Trust has made a commitment to support

Dementia Friends, an Alzheimer’s Society

initiative, to help staff develop their

understanding of dementia and turn it into

action to support patients and employees who

are affected by the

condition.

Driver Training

We have undertaken an annual review of road

traffic claims to identify trends and themes to

inform the Trust’s driver training.

The Safety of Patient Escorts

We have learned from a claim involving the

safety of those people

travelling with their

relatives to hospital and

have put arrangements in

place to ensure that staff

consider the safety of these escorts.

Review of NHS Direct Wales Advice

We have undertaken a review of the advice

that NHSDW provides to patients who are

experiencing abdominal pain.

Manual Handling

We are working jointly with an NHS

ambulance service in England to reduce the

risk of manual handling incidents involving

staff and patients following a legal claim.

Electronic Patient Clinical Record (PCR)

Each time one of our clinicians assesses a

patient, they complete a paper record of their

observations and treatment. We had to collect

these from ambulance stations and scan each

one into our system.

In August 2015, we went live with our new

digi-pen solution to go electronic. Each

paramedic has been issued with a digital pen

to be used with specially designed forms to be

able to upload the PCR information at the end

of their shift. This enables us to provide the

paper copy to the hospital and to get

electronic Trust information quickly for

concerns investigations and to learn from

clinical auditing of the information.

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10. Assurance Part of the role of the Public Services

Ombudsman for Wales is to consider

complaints about the National Health Service

to see whether people have been treated

unfairly or inconsiderately, or have received a

bad service through some part of the service

provider. If a complaint is upheld, the

Ombudsman will recommend appropriate

redress for the NHS body to provide.

In 2015/16, 16 concerns against the Trust

were escalated to the Ombudsman. This was

more than the 12 in 2014/15. Of these cases:

3 cases were out of the Ombudsman’s

jurisdiction;

4 cases were escalated prematurely;

6 cases were closed after initial

consideration;

3 cases were upheld as opposed to 1 in

2014/15.

The learning that was implemented from the

upheld cases included:

reminder to staff of specific procedures

associated with attending expected

deaths in the community to support

bereaved families;

the importance of record keeping in

cases where patients are not conveyed

to hospital;

to ensure validation of investigation

information at the approval stage by

senior managers;

the importance of clear communication

with the person raising concerns in

handling of complex cases;

issue of new oxygen monitoring

equipment to emergency staff;

implementation of a Clinical Desk in the

Clinical Contact Centre to enable

paramedics and nurses to triage

patients over the telephone where

appropriate, to determine the

appropriate response to meet their

needs.

The Ombudsman’s Annual Report can be

found online at www.ombudsman-

wales.org.uk.

The NHS organisations in Wales are subject

to annual assessment of concerns against the

Concerns & Compensation Claims

Management Standards by the Welsh Risk

Pool Services (WRPS). The purpose of the

standards is to ensure that NHS bodies have

effective processes for managing concerns

and legal claims and to evidence that good

organisational learning flows from these

events.

The assessment schedule varies annually and

this year the final report has not been

published at the time of this report in June

2016.

In this year’s assessment the WRPS changed

the pre-assessment requirements to include

details of staffing & structures, informal

complaints handling and the quality assurance

of decisions made as part of the Redress

Process.

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11. Our Plans for 2016/17

As the newly

appointed Executive

Director of Quality,

Safety & Patient

Experience, I am

delighted to be the

corporate lead for our

Putting Things Right

and Patient

Experience Agendas.

Our plan for 2016/17 is

to continue with the excellent progress that we

have made in learning from service user

experience that we obtain from concerns to

develop the services that we provide. In order

to do this, we are bringing together our Putting

Things Right Team, Patient Safety Team and

Partners in Health Team within our

directorate.

This has provided an opportunity to re-design

how we use our resources and expertise to

ensure you have a prompt response and a

positive experience when raising concerns

with us.

We recognise that our existing arrangements

for concerns investigation and handling of

complaints does not support the delivery of

prompt responses. This often causes

frustration for those awaiting the outcomes of

our investigations into their concerns and for

the staff co-ordinating the response.

Our ambition for 2016/17 is to create a

support service from which we obtain more

people proving us with positive feedback from

their experience in raising concerns with us.

We aim to have more people feeling like they

have been treated as individuals throughout

the concerns process and have been provided

with assurance that we have learned from

their experience to make changes.

What we will do...

Re-structure the Quality, Safety & Patient Experience Directorate to utilise

our skills more effectively and efficiently to support concerns

Implement new arrangements for the handling of concerns to enable timely

responses and increase sharing of learning from concerns

Support Dementia Friendly organisation accreditation

We will improve our data collection to support learning

We will implement a new policy to support Putting Things Right

We will implement recommendations from the outcome of the Welsh Risk

Pool Services Annual Assessment of Complaints, Claims, Redress and

Organisational Learning.

We will work towards increasing your satisfaction in the way that we handle

the concerns that you raise with us.

We will compare ourselves with other Ambulance Trusts where we are

comparable to support our improvement journey

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