HSC Complaints & Learning Working Group begins drafting recommendations

Friday 21 August 2026

Health & Social Care's Complaints & Learning Working Group has begun drafting recommendations to improve the complaints process, following the completion of a number of workstreams.

The working group first met in March to start its work with the aim of enhancing transparency, fairness and public confidence in the health and social care complaints process, and to ensure organisational learning and improvement was properly captured and actioned where required.

The working group met again this week to consider the outcomes and reports arising from each of the four workstreams and agreed to start to draft the recommendations which it intends to present to the Committee for Health & Social Care at the end of October.

The working group members were pleased with the quality of the work undertaken and noted that thematic insights and suggestions for improvement were notably aligned across the various reports it received.

Work on the draft recommendations will take place over the coming weeks and the group will be contacting key stakeholders through the month of September and early October to consult on those recommendations. In these consultation meetings the working group will seek feedback on operational viability and whether stakeholders believe the recommendations will effectively deliver on the working group's mandate to enhance transparency and fairness and improve public confidence in the process.

Deputy Sally Rochester, Chair of the Working Group and Member of the Committee for Health & Social Care, said:

"The work we have undertaken is critical to improving public confidence in the Health & Social Care complaints process and ensuring organisational learning - we want to ensure that transparency and fairness are enhanced, and that when learning is identified through a complaint, it is the underlying issue that is addressed so it is unlikely to happen again. Each of the four workstreams has come back with similar themes, which gives the working group confidence in the basis for its development of recommendations. In the coming months we will be engaging again with stakeholders around our draft recommendations, and then in October we will present them to the Committee. On behalf of the group, I would like to put on record our thanks for the work of Citizen's Advice Guernsey, Carewatch, Dr Simon West, Mourant and officers, all of whom have supported the group in making good progress to-date.

"Most importantly we would like to thank the HSC & MSG staff and service users from the Guernsey community who have taken the time to provide their views on the complaints process currently in place. Over 200 people have contributed to the review so far and we are grateful that they took the time to make their contribution to this important work. Their valuable insights will enable us to ensure our recommendations focus on better outcomes for both service users and health and social care staff across both organisations in the future."