Regulatory Requirements Codes of Practice in Current Law

Identify the regulatory requirements, codes of practice and relevant guidance for managing concerns and complaints in own area of work

It is important to have a robust Complaints Procedure within any Health and Social care setting, this ensures the attainment of a person centred care delivery outcomes. There are various requirements, guiding principles and legislation that must be taken into consideration when formulating policies on managing concerns and complaints. The following are some of the guiding principles and legislations that form the framework for an effective complaints management procedure.

Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulation 2014: Regulations 16

The intention of this regulation is to create a process that ensures people find making a complaint about their care and treatment quite easy. In order to satisfy this regulation, Health and social care providers must have in place an accessible and effective system for recognising, receiving, managing and responding to complaints from service users, their representatives or other stakeholders. All complaints must be thoroughly investigated and any required actions taken where evidence of failures were identified.

Equality Act 2010

• The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society.
• It replaced all former anti-discrimination laws with a single Act, making the law easier to understand and strengthening protection in some situations. It sets out the different ways in which it’s unlawful to treat someone.
• Some of its provisions that relate to disability include; extending protection against indirect discrimination to disability and making disability one of the eight protected characteristics.

• Making it more difficult for persons with disability to be unjustly eliminated when seeking jobs, this was done by restricting the circumstances in which employers can ask job applicants questions about disability or health

Data Protection Act 1998 and GDPR 2018

Under the Data Protection Act 2018, you have the right to find out what information the government and other organisations store about you. These include the right to:

• be informed about how your data is being used
• If you think your data has been misused or that the organisation holding it has not kept it secure, you should contact them and tell them.
• If you’re unhappy with their response or if you need any advice you should contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
• The ICO can investigate your claim and take action against anyone who’s misused personal data.

Human Rights Act 1998

• The Human Rights Act gives effect to the human rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights. These rights are called Convention rights.
• Some of the Convention or human rights include: the right to life, the right to respect private family life, the right to freedom of belief and religion and some other rights.
• If you think any of your rights have been breached, you can take action in the UK courts.
• Complaints Management Checklist for Adult Social Care
• Local Government and social care Ombudsman have a complaint management checklist that which is based on the 2009 regulations that currently apply to local authorities and the NHS.