Making an informed choice
There is extensive literature on informed decision making in health care and some of the key ingredients may be useful in the context of supporting complainants to make decisions about how they want a complaint dealt with.
People make better decisions if they feel confident in four areas
- Knowing the options.
- Feeling clear about what is important to them.
- Having enough help from others in deciding.
- Feeling sure that they are making the best choice.
Information that helps someone understand the implications of their choices can improve the decision process. The more important the decision, the more important the decision making process.
Complainants will bring their own beliefs, values, fears, experiences and information to the discussion. The ICAS advocate should not only help them to
but also
- explore their own values and beliefs.
Complainants may lack an understanding of what impact pursuing a complaint might have on their everyday lives, and because of that fail to consider it or weight it properly in making their decision.
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Making a complaint can be quite an effort for the complainant – writing letters, remembering deadlines, keeping notes of phone calls – and it can take a long time to get a result. It can also be upsetting having to think and talk about what has happened, especially if something has gone very badly wrong with their treatment, or a relative or friend has died.
ICAS self help pack |
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A step-by step process
It is important to support the complainant through a step-by step process to consider what options to pursue. This will give them time to think these choices through, and as a result make well considered decisions. In healthcare, these processes are called decision aids. A checklist can be a useful decision aid for both the ICAS advocate and the complainant.
Informed choice checklist
List the rational and realistic choices.
Break the list of possible decisions into those that are really unrealistic and those that are possible.
As a general rule, each stage of the NHS complaints procedure can only proceed if the previous one has been exhausted.
Next: When is further action through the NHS complaints procedure likely to be productive?
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