COURSES > SERVICE IMPROVEMENT

Developing Effective Written Responses to Complaints in Healthcare

Excel at Accurate, Compassionate and Comprehensive Correspondence

Chaired by
Sue Calthorpe

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All of our training courses can be tailored specifically for your team or organisation and presented at your offices, at another suitable location or virtually.


Overview

 Addressing complaints effectively can strengthen your organisation’s reputation, rebuild trust with patients, carers and families, and help prevent escalation to regulatory bodies like the CQC.

Our Developing Effective Written Responses to Complaints in Healthcare course provides advanced skills in complaint handling and writing, enabling you to respond efficiently, compassionately, and promptly.

Through group discussions, practical exercises, and individual feedback from Communications Specialist Sue Calthorpe, you’ll learn valuable techniques in a supportive environment. The course is designed to equip you with the skills and confidence to resolve complaints and enhance communication, ensuring more positive outcomes.

Leave the day with practical tools to craft impactful responses, ready to apply in real-world situations.



Media & Communications Specialist

Sue works to help organisations improve their report writing, briefings and submissions, complaint handling, promotional writing, persuasive writing, and how to communicate complex information.

Before setting up her own full-service communications company, which has been successfully established for over 30 years, Sue worked as a regional and national newspaper journalist.  

Her work doesn’t just reside in the UK too, she trains internationally and has worked in France, Qatar, India and Bangladesh on a range of projects involving written communication. 

Her most recent clients include the Home Office, the Law Society, Legal & General, HSBC, the Office for National Statistics, HMT and lots more. 

Sue Calthorpe

Learning Outcomes:

  • Effectively assess and plan your reply

  • Create credible correspondence moving forward

  • Learn from best practice how to respond to a complaint

  • Identify the ‘trigger point’ to ensure you answer the question

  • Understand what is working and what needs improvement in healthcare complaints letter writing




All the Understanding ModernGov courses are Continuing Professional Development (CPD) certified,
with signed certificates available upon request for event.


Enquire About Tailored Training For Your Team or Organisation:

0800 542 9414
InHouse@moderngov.com



Agenda

09:25 - 09:30 Registration

09:30 - 10:00 Trainer's Welcome and Clarification of Learning Objectives

10:00 - 10:45 Patient Complaints: What’s Working and What Needs to Improve

  • What are the trends in healthcare complaints?

  • What experience do you need to handle complaints well?

  • How do other organisations handle complaints: which systems work well?

  • Understand the effect complaints have on staff, patients and their families

10:45 - 11:30 Best and Bad Practice

  • Assess a range of real-life correspondence

  • Identify best practice use of style, tone, vocabulary, presentation of facts, evidence and expert comment

11:30 - 11:45 Morning Break

11:45 - 13:00 Assessing and Planning Your Reply

  • Responding to complaints on social media

    • Using appropriate style and tone of voice

    • Understand data protection and consent issues

    • Know when and where it is appropriate to respond

  • Develop planning tools to create a suitable reply

  • Identify ‘trigger’ points from correspondence to provide better responses

  • Understand how writers want their complaint handled and what they expect from the reply

13:00 - 14:00 Lunch

14:00 - 14:45 Practical Exercise in Complaint Handling

Create a response using the four boxes grid to embed the learning from the morning session.

  • Practise planning a response

  • Use objective criteria to deliver excellent peer feedback to help colleagues with constructive critique

14:45 - 16:00 Using the Planning Grid in Real Life

In this practical session examine three real-life complaints and their responses to embed today’s lessons learnt.

16:00 - 16:15 Feedback, Evaluation and Close

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