Band 5 Patient Relations Officer (Complaints)

Job Summary

Join our dynamic Patient Relations Team as a Patient Relations Officer (Complaints) and play a pivotal role in enhancing patient care and satisfaction. With your understanding of NHS complaints regulations and exceptional interpersonal skills, you will ensure effective handling of complaints, providing compassionate support to patients and their families. This role offers the opportunity to work independently, manage complex cases, and drive improvements in service delivery. Your expertise in data analysis, complaint investigation, and resolution will contribute to maintaining the highest standards of patient care and fostering a culture of transparency and accountability within our Trust. Be a part of a dedicated team committed to building healthier lives and making a meaningful impact in the healthcare community.

Main Duties, Tasks & Skills Required

The post holder will ensure compliance with NHS Complaints legislation, local and national policies, and best practices to foster service improvement through customer feedback. Working independently, they will be responsible for:

Liaising sensitively and compassionately with patients, families, carers, and complainants to gather relevant information.

Facilitating complaint resolutions in a person-centred manner, maintaining professionalism and integrity.

Managing their caseload, including complex and sensitive complaints, and supporting divisional staff to ensure thorough, timely investigations that meet standards and KPIs.

Risk assessing and processing new complaints, providing signposting as needed.

Identifying and escalating risks to patient and staff safety.

Coordinating complaint investigations and responses, ensuring compliance with NHS legislation and internal policies.

Collaborating with subject matter experts for investigations and providing clear guidance.

Writing professional complaint responses and handling cross-agency complaints.

Facilitating and attending resolution meetings and managing difficult situations with empathy.

Coordinating with the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) when necessary.

Working with internal and external stakeholders to ensure timely complaint investigations and service improvements.

About Us

We are recognised as one of the leading NHS Foundation Trusts in the UK. Our vision is to Build Healthier Lives, and we recognise that we need incredible staff to do this.

Our commitment to our staff is to create the best place for them to work, and we are dedicated to:

Investing in the health and wellbeing of our staff, including a commitment of offering flexible working where we can;

Offer our staff a wide variety of training and development opportunities, to support their personal and career development objectives.

UHB is committed to ensuring that our staff are treated fairly and feel that they belong, by creating a kind and inclusive environment. This is about equity of opportunity; removing all barriers, including discrimination and ensuring each individual member of staff reach their true potential, achieve their ambitions and thrive in their work. This is more than words. We are taking action. Our commitment to an inclusive culture is embedded at all levels of the organisation where every voice is heard, driven by our diverse and active staff networks, and at Board level by the Fairness Taskforce led by our CEO. We nurture a culture which empowers staff to challenge discriminatory behaviours and to enable people to bring their 'whole self' to a kinder, more connected and bold place to work.

University Hospitals Birmingham is a Smoke-Free premises hospital.

Job Description

*Please Note : For a specific detailed job description for this vacancy, please see attached Job Description*

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential

Educated to Degree level or substantial experience at a comparable level

Minimum English qualification - GCSE grade A-C

Experience

Essential

Experience of working with patients and families, including handling complex issues and behaviours.

Experience of working as part of a team.

Experience of producing reports.

Experience of negotiating with staff of all grades/professional groups and members of the public.

Experience of using DatixWeb or similar database.

Experience of structured letter writing in a professional style.

Proven working knowledge of Microsoft Office applications: e.g.Outlook/Word/Excel.

Experience of managing own workload.

Experience of facilitating meetings.

Experience of interrogating patient record systems.

Specialist knowledge of PALS and complaints practice, policies and compliance requirements.

Knowledge of the NHS Complaints Regulations.

Knowledge of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO).

Understanding of the issues and policies around equality.

Knowledge relating to GDPR, duty of confidentiality, safeguarding and consent.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.