When things go wrong

Who It's For

Leaders and managers in housing and wider public services handling complaints

Overview

When things go wrong in public services, what matters is whether people are heard, whether the response is fair and whether anything changes. This programme brings the whole arc together in a half day: why complaints matter where people cannot exit, the ombudsman landscape and complaint handling codes in Wales and England, the human craft of a good response and apology, and damp and mould under Awaab's Law. It then moves from handling to learning, with Edmondson, Reason and Dekker's just culture, the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework, candour after Hillsborough, and a capstone on Trivallis, WASPI and the Post Office.

Aims

This programme aims to help leaders connect complaint handling, ombudsman oversight and organisational learning into one system, so that dissatisfaction is welcomed, responses are humane and proportionate, failure is examined without scapegoating, and boards can see genuine evidence that the organisation listens, tells the truth and changes what it does.

In summary, you will be able to:

1. 1Explain how voice, complaint codes, ombudsman schemes and duties of candour fit together across Wales and England within the wider system of public accountability.
2. 2Apply the principles of good complaint handling, meaningful apology, proportionate remedy and system-focused learning reviews to real cases from your own service.
3. 3Assess whether your organisation treats complaints and failures as insight, using maturity quadrants, triangulated board evidence and the lessons of Trivallis, WASPI and the Post Office.

What you'll develop

Across this Explore, you will develop the ability to:

1. 1Explain, using Hirschman's exit, voice and loyalty, why ignored voice in a service people cannot leave leads to silent disengagement rather than exit.
2. 2Compare complaint stages and timescales under the English codes and the Welsh model procedure, and explain why both limit internal stages to two.
3. 3Explain how missed warnings turn into formal complaints and campaigns, using the Mid Staffordshire case and the listening loop.
4. 4Distinguish Edmondson's basic, complex and intelligent failures and choose a proportionate leadership response to each.
5. 5Apply the four habits of useful learning reviews and the four aims of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework to a complaint or incident in your own setting.
6. 6Apply the five lenses to the Trivallis case to identify how repeat reports, records, vulnerability, complaint handling and governance contributed to harm.