Care & practice
Complaints & Duty of Candour
Version 1.0 · draft for approval
Complaints are welcome and free to make; how to handle one on the doorstep; and our legal duty to be honest when care goes wrong.
Draft for approval — awaiting formal adoption by the registered manager; not yet in force.
Complaints
- Anyone — client, family, professional — can complain, and complaining will never affect the care they receive. Say this out loud if someone seems worried about it.
- If someone complains to you during a visit: listen without arguing or admitting fault on the company's behalf, thank them, and tell them their complaint will reach the manager the same day. Then make sure it does.
- Never try to talk someone out of complaining or handle it quietly yourself.
- People can also complain directly to the Care Inspectorate (0345 600 9527) at any time, without telling us first — and we tell them so.
Duty of candour
Under Scotland's organisational duty of candour (Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc. and Care) (Scotland) Act 2016), when an unintended or unexpected event causes harm — death, serious injury, or increased treatment — we must tell the person affected, apologise, review what happened, and publish what we learned in an annual report.
- Your part: report anything that may have caused harm immediately and honestly. The duty cannot be met if events are not reported.
- An apology under the duty of candour is not an admission of legal liability — Scottish law says so explicitly. Honesty is safe here.
- We run a learning culture: the response to an honest mistake is 'what do we change?', not 'who do we blame?'. Concealment, not error, is the disciplinary offence.