Making Your Voice Heard.. The first decade of the Eastern Health and Social Services Council

1995-96: Building better systems for managing complaints

The mid-1990s witnessed a rapid expansion in demand from the public for more information and advice from the Council. Between 1995 and 1996, there was a growth in this demand of some 60 per cent.

Many of those people contacting the Council continued to seek advice on how to complain against their health or social services. This prompted a series of new initiatives by the Council to ensure that local people could pursue their complaints more effectively - and that health and social services organisations had better systems in place for processing these.

This important new work resulted in:

• The publication of a special leaflet offering people advice on how to make a complaint against health and social services organisations - the first of its kind in the United Kingdom.
• A survey by the Council to evaluate the effectiveness of its complaints service - which showed that more than 90 per cent of people using this found it helpful.

On a wider front, the Patient Advocacy service previously established at Belfast City Council continued to demonstrate value. More than 100 patients accessed the service during the course of the year, and the Council's work within this hospital was reinforced with a survey undertaken among patients using its accident and emergency unit. The objective of this initiative was to measure satisfaction among patients with the services offered by the unit and to help identify ways of further improving these.

Lastly, the Council continued its work during this year on a range of further survey initiatives similarly geared towards improving other care services. These included:

• An evaluation of services offered by the Down Lisburn Trust to the parents or carers of children with a learning disability.
• A survey to try and measure the prevalence of 'informal' caring - where people must look after others without any support from a health and social services organisation.

So, by the beginning of 1997, the Council was clearly well established as an organisation working with flair and commitment on behalf of everyone using health and social services.